Leaked TISA Documents Reveal Privacy Threat from Trade Deal
Tech 6/04/2015 @ 8:19AM
Leaked TISA Documents Reveal Privacy Threat
By Emma Woollacott
Contributor
Under the draft provisions of the latest trade deal to be
leaked by Wikileaks, countries could be barred from trying to control where
their citizens’ personal data is held or whether it’s accessible from outside
the country.
Wikileaks has released 17 documents relating to the Trade
in Services Agreement (TISA), currently under negotiation between the US, the
European Union and 23 other nations. These negotiating texts are supposed to
remain secret for five years after TISA is finalized and brought into force.
The deal, which has been under discussion behind closed
doors since early 2013, is intended to remove barriers to trade in services.
It’s a sort of companion piece to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which cover trade
in goods – but potentially far bigger, with Wikileaks claiming that ‘services’
now account for nearly 80 per cent of the US and EU economies.
Like TTIP and TPP, TISA could be sped through Congress
using Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), also known as fast-track authority,
which has been passed by the US Senate and may be taken up in the House this
month. Under TPA, Congress is barred from making amendments to the trade deals,
and most simply give yes-or-no approval.
And the contents of TISA make interesting reading,
particularly for anybody concerned about privacy. Under the draft agreement,
the EU would be barred from requiring the personal data of its citizens to be
held within European borders, an idea currently under discussion in Germany.
“No Party may require a service supplier, as a condition
for supplying a service or investing in its territory, to: (a) use computing
facilities located in the Party’s territory,” the leaked draft stipulates.
These rules could in some ways have a beneficial effect:
they could, for example, be used to outlaw state censorship.
However, there are clear implications for privacy – as
well as security from hacking. EU privacy regulations currently require
companies to store EU citizens’ personal data locally, to make sure they comply
with the region’s strict legal requirements for data processing. Tech companies
like Facebook, Google, and internet advertising networks would be delighted to
see such rules relaxed.
It’s a complicated issue, and one that should really be
discussed in public, before any agreement is reached. As Maira Sutton of the
Electronic Frontier Foundation has previously noted, “Negotiators should be
working to reconcile this tension between powerful private and public actors
who may have conflicting stances on major human rights issues such as privacy
and free expression.
“That in turn, will require open public participation
from a variety of stakeholders. By contrast, TISA’s language reflects the
concerns of the internet industry, and not necessarily the interests of
internet users as a whole.”
Wikileaks has previously leaked parts of the TPP deal,
and on Tuesday, announced plans to try and raise $100,000 to be used as a
reward for the remaining chapters.
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