Bitkom views regarding Presidency Discussion Paper and Doc. 5165/18

Bitkom welcomes the opportunity to comment on the outlined guiding principles and options raised by the Presidency.

The European industry places a high value on privacy and confidentiality, but the proposal for an ePrivacy Regulation (ePR) puts the progress that was achieved through the balanced provisions of the GDPR at risk. Without amendments, the ePR will make it exceedingly difficult for European companies to innovate and transform digitally. Furthermore, many current business models would be put at risk and user experience for most information society services would suffer unduly. Therefore, we appreciate the Presidency´s view on some points of the ePR, especially the willingness to look into the issue of Art. 6(2) and the possible alignment with Art. 6(4) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), as Bitkom has consistently advocated for such an alignment.