The new legislation, which still faces final approval by the 15 EU governments, will give anti-terrorist investigators greater powers to eavesdrop on private data on the Internet and other electronic records like people's phone calls.
In a key amendment that passed by a vote of 351 to 133, the parliament also gave EU governments power to force Internet and phone companies to retain data and logs of its clients beyond the normal one or two-month billing period. The EU assembly said governments could ask companies to retain data for an unspecified "limited time" if EU governments determine it necessary "to safeguard national security."
Civil-liberty groups and many EU lawmakers fear the restrictions would severely weaken privacy legislation.
"Looking at the results, this amounts to a large amount of restriction on privacy and increases the powers of the state," said Italian independent member Marco Cappato, who authored the bill but who failed to stop the amended clause from being inserted.
In a letter to EU lawmakers before the vote, a group of 40 civil-liberties groups warned that giving retention powers to governments could have "disastrous consequences for the most sensitive and confidential types of personal data."
Though the bill binds EU governments to adhere to privacy rights enshrined in the 50-year-old European Convention on Human Rights, privacy advocates fear the new rules are a step in the wrong direction.
"The security climate that has taken hold after the attacks of Sept. 11 should not legitimize a retreat of the liberties and rights of expression of Europeans," said Robert Menard, secretary-general of Paris-based organization Reporters Without Borders.
The measure also extends privacy protection adopted in 1997 against unsolicited phone calls to e-mail, advertisements sent to mobile phones or any other form of "electronic communications."
The bill will restrict unsolicited e-mails unless addressees agree in advance to receive them. It similarly bans the use of un-requested files placed by Web-site operators in the computer memory of Internet users to identify them.
The European Consumers' organization, BEUC, welcomed approval of the bill, saying in a statement that the restrictions was "the only way to ensure that European consumers, who do not want the nuisance, cost and hassle involved ... can choose whether they want to receive 'spam' or not."
The bill's final approval marks the end of nine months of wrangling between the parliament and EU governments who had hoped that quick passage of the bill after the Sept. 11 attacks would show Washington they were serious about hunting down terrorist suspects in Europe.
Copyright 2002. Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
