A few of the finest minds in data protection have, by now,
read at least half of the recently published LIBE report, which proposes a huge
range of changes to the current proposal to amend the current Data Protection
Directive.
Evidently, some of them can’t quite believe, or understand, what it
is that they are reading.
Who can blame them – the text is complicated and, given the
speed with which many of the amendments were proposed, contain drafting errors
that don’t quite deliver what the authors probably intended.
It is a pity that the European
Commission can’t first issue a document which sets out, in very detailed policy terms,
precisely what it is that the text should say – so that, when the policy objectives
do get to be agreed, a group of juro-linquists could (and only) then develop a
set of legal provisions that precisely delivered those objectives.
As it is, we are all left to read this complicated stuff and
then comment on what we think it means, rather than perhaps what it was actually
intended to mean.
Let’s not get too stressed though. There is no need to take
these proposals personally. If many thousands more trained and experienced Data
Protection Officers are required, then I’m sure that, eventually, they will emerge.
There are plenty of bright Europeans who are currently unemployed, after all.
But we are not the first generation to fret about proposals
that don’t seem to make much sense.
As a good chum pointed out to me today, Confucius something
to say about this, too:
“If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is
meant. If what is said is not what is meant, then what ought to be done remains
undone.”
Image credit:
http://www.artsjournal.com/popcorn/Confucius.jpg
.
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