Swedish criticism of EU data privacy laws
The Swedish government says new EU legislation to protect data privacy is “overly bureaucratic”, while its supporters in the European Parliament are afraid it won’t go far enough in protecting personal information.
Swedish Pirate Party MEP Amelia Andersdotter tells Swedish Radio News that American IT companies like Google and Facebook are lobbying hard to stop the legislation. The proposal would limit how much information about their users they could sell to advertisers and others.
But Swedish Justice Minister Beatrice Ask says the European Commission has gone too far in drafting the proposal, calling it “clumsy and overly bureaucratic”. Swedish Radio News says the government here is concerned the proposal’s sanctions against companies that break the regulations would conflict with the principles of transparency here.
Google blurs out face of famous statue
Swedish Radio News reports that a famous statue in Karlskrona has had its face blurred in Google Street View, apparently because it is too lifelike.
