'US snooping endangers fundamental right to privacy' - Tonio Borg

The European Parliament yesterday slammed the US over the PRISM data leakage scandal. During the same plenary, Tonio Borg was the first EU commissioner to break the silence over this alleged US abuse of data protection of millions of Europeans.

Tonio Borg stated that "programmes such as the so-called Prism, and the laws on the basis of which such programmes are authorised, potentially endanger the fundamental right to privacy and the data protection of EU citizens."

In the past few days, prominent newspapers such as 'The Guardian' and 'The Washington Post' broke news that America's National Security Agency (NSA) is snooping on millions of European's data held by firms such as Google or Facebook. This was leaked by a former NSA officer.

Borg told the European Parliament that the European Commission is concerned about these recent media reports, and that the EU Commissioner for Justice and Fundamental Rights, Viviane Reding, will raise this issue with force at the upcoming EU-US Ministerial on Friday.

Meanwhile, the European Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx, also released a statement yesterday, saying that he is following the NSA story closely and is concerned about the possible serious implications for the privacy of EU citizens.