On the 08 October 2013, Ms. Vivianne Reding, Commissioner for Justice, intervened at the Justice Council on the Data Protection Regulation. Her speech was centred on “one-stop shop” concept.
The “one-stop shop” model is one of the central plans of the Commission’s proposal. It means that, when the controller or the processor of personal data is active in more than one Member State, one single supervisory authority should be competent for monitoring its activities throughout the EU.
Concerning implication for Data Protection in health care, according to Ms. Reding, if the model proposed by the Commission is adopted in the final regulation, it will increase legal certainty on the use of clinical data for research all over Europe, once a clear jurisprudence on the scope of data protection on health care data will be settled by data protection authorities and confirmed by the European Data Protection Board. Such a mechanism, defended the Commissioner, will increase consistency in the application of the Regulation across Europe. This will be especially beneficial for pan-European research projects.
This model seems to be a point of concern for Member States and has been subject to debate during the meeting of the European Union on the 7 October 2013, as well as to multiple discussions in the Council’s Working Group of Information Exchange and Data Protection. Although Member States agree with the idea and voiced support for the “one-stop shop” mechanism, they are concerned that, while the one-stop shop model is intended to be advantageous for business activities, it might be detrimental to individuals’ data protection rights and could be disadvantageous for national authorities’ grasp on data protection judicial procedures.
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