European Union (EU) on Wednesday expressed “concern”, following accusations of tapping the trans-Atlantic fiber optic cables by Britain, and asked for immediate explanations from British authorities.
“I have serious concerns about recent media reports that United States authorities are accessing and processing, on a large scale, the data of European Union citizens using major US online service providers,” said European Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding in a letter to William Hague, UK’s foreign secretary, asking for an urgent response by the end of the week.
She added: “If media reports are true, these programmes could have a serious impact on the fundamental rights of individuals in the European Union.”
Reding addressed four questions, namely, how big is the programme, whether it is limited to individual cases, whether the data stayed in the UK or was sent to other countries and what are the possibilities of redress for British and European citizens.
William Hague said in the British parliament that the UK intelligence services do not “indiscriminately trawl” through citizens’ data, adding: “It has been suggested GCHQ uses our partnership with the United States to get around UK law, obtaining information that they cannot legally obtain in the UK. I wish to be absolutely clear that this accusation is baseless.”
Edward Snowden, the former consultant of the U.S. intelligence agency NSA has revealed Saturday that the British intelligence services have access to fiber optic cables, which gives them the status of a major player in the global communications surveillance.
German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said at that time that, if the allegations are confirmed, it would be “a catastrophe”, evoking a “Hollywood nightmare.”
According to Reding, this new scandal is “A very clear signal that we need… the right balance between the protection of data and the processing of data for security reasons.”
EU member states have rejected earlier this month a regulation draft presented by Reding on enhancing data protection against Internet attacks. Some countries felt that the project is too tough for companies, while other countries demanded more protection for its citizens.
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