Debates

Thursday, 11 May 2023 - Strasbourg

Adequacy of the protection afforded by the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (B9-0234/2023)

  Mick Wallace (The Left). – Madam President, the resolution is rightfully critical of the Data Privacy Framework. It rightly concludes that, as happened with the Schrems I and II cases, the Framework would not survive the criminal justice of the EU. The problem, of course, for the CJEU in the Schrems case, as revealed by Edward Snowden, was the mass surveillance of non—US citizens by the US intelligence services.

However, given Parliament’s very obvious awareness of this mass surveillance of EU citizens by the US, as evidenced in the resolution, one has to wonder why the recent clamour to restrict the use of TikTok on corporate devices in the Parliament wasn’t also accompanied by a call to do the same for US social media platforms and why such mass media hysteria in relation to TikTok and complete silence on the biggest players in the game?

We have zero evidence of Chinese surveillance of EU citizens via TikTok – though I’m sure they’re surveilling their own. Banning TikTok is a geopolitical decision, pandering to the US empire and rooted in anti—China racism.