Proposition 50K1940

Projet de loi modifiant la loi du 8 décembre 1992 relative à la protection de la vie privée à l'égard des traitements de données à caractère personnel et la loi du 15 janvier 1990 relative à l'institution et à l'organisation d'une Banque-Carrefour de la sécurité sociale en vue d'aménager le statut et d'étendre les compétences de la Commission de la protection de la vie privée.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Tony Van Parys
Ecolo Martine Dardenne
Groen Peter Vanhoutte
LE Jean-Jacques Viseur
MR Anne Barzin
Open Vld Hugo Coveliers
PS | SP Thierry Giet
Vooruit Fred Erdman

Submission date

July 15, 2002

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

protection of privacy

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA MR FN VB

Party dissidents ¶

• Richard Fournaux (MR) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Jan. 16, 2003 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

The rapporteur, Mr Van Parys, asked me to apologize to him and to inform the Chamber that he refers to the written report.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, very quickly and without wanting to extend the debates, I believe I can say that this bill — even though one can obviously dream of a more portable media character — is quite important to more than one title if we adopt it tonight.

First of all, I think it is ⁇ in phase with the evolution of our society. In the computer age, the protection of the privacy of every citizen is more relevant than ever. Files, databases and databases flourish in all sectors. The use of them must be regulated and monitored. This was already the subject of the Act of 8 December 1992 on the protection of privacy with regard to the processing of personal data. Everything indicates that this evolution will only increase.

Then, this amplification now inevitably generates a mass of labour that is only growing. The resources must be increased. The current privacy protection committee calls for it, complaining very specifically about the continuously reduced number of employees and the large rotation of them. If this text is adopted, it will now be up to our House of Representatives to decide on the budget and the resources it wishes to make available to ensure this indispensable mission of protecting the privacy of everyone. The primary choice actually made by this text is to place the commission now under the supervision and authority of the House of Representatives, as this already exists for other institutions. Everyone will remember the Committee P, the Committee R or the Supreme Council of Justice.

I believe this is a considerable reinforcement of Parliament’s action and control powers. In the future, it will be up to us to decide on the means to be made available to the Privacy Protection Commission. This is obviously a heavy responsibility. In addition to the increased power of our House, it is also a guarantee of independence of the Privacy Protection Commission, which until now worked in the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice, which it was supposed to control also occasionally.

The actuality of the control of the use of databases is no longer to be demonstrated. Recently, our House passed the Law on the Cross Bank of Companies, the Law on the Database of Health Professionals. Soon, she will be seized with a bill on the National Register and we know that the Social Security Cross Bank has already existed for several years.

Thus, many sectors of public life as well as civil and economic society are concerned with the problem of databases and their use. Therefore, it was appropriate to allow the creation within the Privacy Protection Committee — and this is the second object of the text — of sectoral committees, bringing together, on the one hand, the members of the Privacy Protection Committee and, on the other hand, the members of the relevant professional sectors, able to contribute their experience and the information they have at their disposal, while leaving, in final, the last word to the Privacy Protection Committee.

This committee will thus become a dome, headed by various sector committees. The law on the Carrefour Bank of Companies we voted for already contains this possibility. I hope that the government’s project on the National Register will do the same. In the future, future legislation will be able to incorporate this perspective. by

A single place, bringing together all the issues related to privacy protection in the face of databases is now indispensable, not only in our internal law and functioning. But a Belgian institution, capable of participating in international work on this subject and representing Belgium there, is also indispensable. In the future, this will also be possible in Parliament and therefore in the House of Representatives.

I would like to emphasize one point. The text presented to us today is also the outcome of an exemplary work of this Chamber. The various stages of this work are as follows:

- Deposition, by the Committee on the Protection of Privacy, of a report, in January 2002, relating to the fiscal years 1999, 2000 and 2001; - creation, shortly after, by the Committee on Justice, of a working group on the subject, chaired by our colleague Coveliers; - Deposition of this bill, on 15 July 2002; - repeated meeting of the working group and hearings of the various interested parties; - Deposition by Mr. Coveliers. Vanhoutte of the report of the work of the committee; - examination of the bill proposal in the Committee of Justice, in December 2002; - today, finally, examination and, I hope, vote of this text by our plenary assembly.

It seems to me to be a quick and efficient working method, thanks to an excellent spirit of collaboration within the Justice Committee and the shared concern of all stakeholders to improve the current situation and to respond to the concerns expressed in its report by the Privacy Protection Committee. Of course, I can only rejoice over all this and hope that our House will adopt this text.

I will be very brief. We express our full support for this bill. This is a good bill, which redresses the rather strange situation in which the Social Security Supervisory Committee was composed by the Chamber, while the “chapeauting” committee fell under the Ministry of Justice. We always complained about this when we were members of both. I think it is a good bill. If it is good, it must also be said. Not only the creation has been very positive, but also the content allows a lot. The only thing I hope is that one would move from a rather reactive committee to a more proactive committee. Until now, the role of privacy protection has been too limited to addressing complaints without going on the field itself. One should know that the biggest abuses are precisely those that never give rise to complaints. I hope that the Chamber will also release the resources in due time to enable proactive control of the protection of the privacy sphere.

Mr. Speaker, I will also briefly intervene from the bank. Their

The draft law of Mr. Giet takes away my full approval. I have, by the way, also experienced in the past that it is a rather strange situation that the committee for the protection of the sphere of life is allowed to "cocot" under Justice while it would be much more normal that the service depends on Parliament. The bill has the merit of resolving this matter in this way, in the short term. Their

I had another observation — I have, by the way, forwarded them to colleague Giet — concerning the capacity of the members of the committee, who now will depend on the Legislative Chamber, but at the same time in some circumstances are officers of the judicial police and therefore have certain duties. I had a comment from my services about this, but I believe that my services have missed the ball here before. There are, by the way, similar situations where the Committee-P or the Committee-I perform their work under the same circumstances. Therefore, I do not think that there is a reason for this bill to cause some delay.