European officials want Google to slow its plans to introduce a new privacy policy so that they can investigate whether or not it is strong enough to protect user data.
The Article 29 Working Party, which is comprised of European data protection officials as well as a representative from the European Union (EU) as well as the EU’s executive European Commission, said it wants time to examine Google’s plans more closely.
“Given the wide range of services you offer, and popularity of these services, changes in your privacy policy may affect many citizens in most or all of the EU member states,” Jacob Kohnstamm, chairman of Article 29, wrote in a letter to Google CEO Larry Page. “We wish to check the possible consequences for the protection of the personal data of these citizens in a coordinated procedure…we call for a pause in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google’s commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens, until we have completed our analysis.”
The policy changes are slated to go into effect March 1. Google, which has publicized the changes through blog posts, email and its website, has said that the comments from Article 29 are a surprise.
“We briefed most of the members of the working party in the weeks leading up to our announcement,” Al Verney, Google’s spokesman in Brussels, told Reuters. “None of them expressed substantial concerns at the time, but of course we’re happy to speak with any data protection authority that has questions.”
