Science at risk from data protection overhaul, warn funders

The European Parliament must reject proposed amendments to the EU data protection regulation because they would significantly hamper scientific research, according to Science Europe.

In a position statement published on 8 May, Science Europe says a failure to strike the right balance between allowing data processing for scientific research whilst also protecting individual privacy would have disastrous consequences for European research.

In January 2012, the European Commission published a proposal to replace the existing data protection directive with an EU-wide regulation, which contains a number of exemptions to facilitate scientific research. However, amendments since introduced by the Parliament’s committee for civil liberties, justice and home affairs (Libe) threaten to undermine these provisions, says Science Europe.