SZABÓ AND VISSY v. HUNGARY JUDGMENT– SEPARATE OPINION
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States of America under Directive 95/46/EC, on 6 November 2015, insisting
that a renewed and sound framework for transfers of personal data to the
United States remains a key priority for the Commission, but at the same
time identifying alternative, vg. contractual, tools authorising data flows by
companies for lawful data transfers to third countries like the United States.
14. By its resolution of 12 March 2014 on the US NSA surveillance
programme, surveillance bodies in various Member States and their impact
on EU citizens’ fundamental rights and on transatlantic cooperation in
Justice and Home Affairs22, the European Parliament condemned virulently
the vast and systemic blanket collection of the personal data of innocent
people, often including intimate personal information, in an “indiscriminate
and non-suspicion-based manner”, calling EU Member States to ensure that
their intelligence services be subject to parliamentary and judicial oversight
and public scrutiny and that they respect the principles of legality, necessity,
proportionality, due process, user notification and transparency. In the
framework of the relations between the EU and the US, the European
Parliament specifically required that effective guarantees be given to
Europeans to ensure that the use of surveillance and data processing for
foreign intelligence purposes is proportional, limited by clearly specified
conditions, and related to reasonable suspicion and probable cause of
terrorist activity, stressing that this purpose must be subject to transparent
judicial oversight. One year later, the European Parliament resolution of
29 October 2015 on the follow-up to the European Parliament resolution of
12 March 201423, called on the Commission to prepare guidelines for
Member States on how to bring any instruments of personal data collection
for the purpose of the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution
of criminal offences, including terrorism, in line with the judgments of the
Court of Justice on data retention and on Safe Harbour, pointing in
particular to paragraphs 58 and 59 of the data retention judgment and to
paragraphs 93 and 94 of the Safe Harbour judgment, which, in the
parliamentarians view, clearly demand a targeted approach for data
collection rather than a ‘full take’. It further warned against the obvious
downward spiral for the fundamental right to privacy and personal data
protection occurring when every bit of information on human behaviour is
considered to be potentially useful in combating future criminal acts,
necessarily resulting in a mass surveillance culture where every citizen is
treated as a potential suspect and leading to the corrosion of societal
coherence and trust.
22
20013/20188(INI). This Resolution was anticipated by the important “Report on the US
NSA surveillance programme, surveillance bodies in various Member States and their
impact on EU citizens’ fundamental rights and on transatlantic cooperation in Justice and
Home Afairs” (A7-0139/2014), of 21 February 2014
23
2015/2635(RSP).