Proposition 52K2493

Projet de loi portant création de la Banque-Carrefour des véhicules.

General information ¶

Submitted by

CD&V Leterme Ⅱ

Submission date

March 17, 2010

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

EC Directive protection of privacy database motor vehicle vehicle registration two-wheeled vehicle

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

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

Contact form ¶

Do you have a question or request regarding this proposition? Select the most appropriate option for your request and I will get back to you shortly.

Discussion ¶

April 29, 2010 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Dear colleagues, since the report has not been distributed, I propose you to suspend our work for about 20 minutes in order to allow the distribution of the report.

Mr Jef Van den Bergh, rapporteur, has the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I refer to the written report distributed around the banks.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, the creation of the Carrefour Vehicle Bank should allow, as the work of the Commission has specified, an advance in the management of a mobility policy and its long-term management. It can be cited as contributions to better knowledge of the fleet of vehicles, traceability of the vehicle from leaving the factory to its destruction and recycling or even better professional recovery of out-of-use vehicles by centres approved according to European directives.

Beyond the unanimous recognition of these objectives in the committee, our work also focused on the practical modalities of implementation of this law and especially on the issues of privacy protection related to the creation of this Carrefour Bank of Vehicles.

Since it is to allow the concentration of a whole series of personal data such as the identity of the holder of the registration or the owner of the vehicle and since the project will allow the exchange of such data between many actors, there are risks of misuse or misuse of the data. Reading the opinion of the Privacy Protection Commission is therefore essential. The report has been reviewed; it contains 17 pages. This opinion is in favour of the preliminary draft law. It also recalls a whole series of substantive observations and recommendations which were, in part, followed by the Government before the consultation of the State Council.

One of the recommendations of the Privacy Protection Commission that has not been accepted is that of the need to have what the Commission calls a special interpretation regulation. Indeed, the provisions on the protection of privacy contained in the draft text could conflict with those of the Act of 8 December 1992 on the protection of privacy with regard to the processing of personal data. Therefore, it must be possible to arbitrate between the two texts. What are the provisions that apply in the end in case of contradiction? The Privacy Protection Committee has therefore submitted a proposal in this regard in its opinion. The spirit of this is as follows: it is the law of 8 December 1992 that is still applicable but, in case of contradiction between the provisions of that law and those of the draft under consideration, it is the provisions most favourable to the protection of privacy that apply.

Therefore, I have submitted an amendment taking the letter and spirit of this recommendation. It was welcomed favorably in the committee and its unanimous vote will allow to strengthen the protection of privacy in the Bank-Carrefour system.

The Council of State spoke about cooperation with the Regions. As drafted in particular in its articles 4, § 2, 12 and 13, the project imposes obligations regarding the collection of certain data to the Regions. Therefore, the preliminary conclusion of a cooperation agreement would have been logical.

According to the answers given by Mr. Secretary of State, these negotiations are ongoing. I would like to point out that it is becoming increasingly common to first vote laws and then determine how to adjust the arrangement to the reality of the Communities and Regions. It would ⁇ be more reasonable to return in the future to a logic of greater cooperation, so that Parliament can simultaneously approve the bill and the draft cooperation agreement related to it.

Finally, at the end of its work, our committee was aware of the opinion of the Superior Council of Independents and SMEs. This opinion was delivered on the initiative of the Bureau of the Council and proposes in particular to grant access to Banque-Carrefour to vehicle dealers and financial institutions. These proposals could not be addressed and we can only regret that these actors were not concerted by the government on the text of the pre-project.

In view of the interest of the project for the mobility policy and the favorable opinion of the Commission on the Protection of Privacy, we will support this text as we did in the committee. I thank you for your attention.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, the draft presented today has a long history. The first decision on this subject in the Council of Ministers dates from 30 March 2004. To put it simply, it has already made a long way, in particular due to the sensitivity of this draft to the Commission on the Protection of Privacy. The Balkans have already mentioned this.

The bill, drawn up under the supervision of Secretary of State Schouppe, eventually succeeded brilliantly in the difficult balance exercise and eventually received the approval of this privacy commission. This is an important step in improving the monitoring of vehicle data. The benefits of this cross-point bank are clear. Thanks to the registration of successive owners, vehicles will be better detected in the future. From now on, the manufacturer and the importer will be required to complete the registration formalities at this cross-point bank. Subsequently, in the event of a change of owner, the person who transfers the property must notify the cross-point bank. This will also need to be ⁇ when removing.

The improved traceability of vehicles enables, in the first place, to intensify the fight against automotive fraud and autocriminality. A linked advantage lies in the field of consumer protection. After all, the available data protects car buyers in the second-hand market, excluding the risk that a vehicle is not the property of the seller because it was stolen or because it is part of a financing agreement.

Another advantage has an immediate relationship with road safety. After all, the cross-point bank will allow you to check who is driving around without a check certificate or without an insurance certificate. It was precisely because of a lack of control on this level that in the past an ever-growing group of free-exploiters slipped through the mazes of the net. In the future, it will be possible to set the pole and perk thanks to this cross-point database. This is, for obvious reasons, especially important for our road safety. Vehicles that do not comply with the applicable technical requirements, in fact, constitute a hazard on the road and in addition, in the event of an accident with a non-insured vehicle, a long and complex procedure must always be followed in order to be able to pay the compensation to the normal insured driver.

In short, the efficient form of data management and information exchange will be a welcome support for implementing a more efficient road safety policy in the coming months and years. In the past, there was a lack of useful and useful data. Thanks to this database, we are partly formulating an answer to this, but with this we are not there yet. There is also a need for better data collection and processing in other areas. We first think of the creation of a central database for driving licenses, a project undertaken by the Secretary of State.

We hope that the next government will be able to continue this work, in order to get better data and guarantee a targeted road safety policy. Thank you for your attention.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, I take this opportunity to say that N-VA is a strong supporter of this cross-point bank because it ensures that there can be a truly efficient policy instrument.

However, the possibility of efficient exchange of data between the different services is important. It can – and I say, it can – be an efficient control tool that simplifies administration. The cross-point bank should provide the government with opportunities to obtain elaborate statistical data.

Our current processing of statistical data actually impedes a targeted efficient traffic policy. This has been discussed repeatedly in the committee. For example, I said in the committee that during the previous legislature in the Netherlands the accident statistics for the year 2004 were published at a certain point, while the National Institute for Statistics of Belgium published its estimate for the year 2001 in that same week. That is scary.

The Secretary of State has confirmed that there would be no automatic link to the accident statistics. He also stated that the cross-point bank is not actually an accident database. But, he has confirmed, the possibility of requesting those data does exist. That is a good thing.

It is also in general a good thing that traceability is finally realized through the permanent succession of ownership of the vehicle, from leaving the factory or import to export or destruction.

The establishment of this cross-point bank is important to us because it is an important tool in the fight against autocriminality. The cross-point bank also engages in the fight against uninsured vehicles and against mileage fraud. It is also very important for data exchange in general. Therefore, N-VA supports this bill on the Crosspoint Bank for Vehicles.