EuroPriSe

Trust in IT solutions is still a delicate issue. Who controls information? Who has access? In today's information-driven society, the issue of access to and control over information is enormously important to modern economy and society. Transparency is essential for consumer and user trust and moreover for a sustainable economic development in the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector. To raise justified trust of consumers and business, they need to know how to choose an IT product or service that protects their privacy. This is where EuroPriSe came in.

EuroPriSe is funded by the European Commission’s eTEN programme with 1.2
million EUR and implemented by a consortium of nine organisations. The EuroPriSe consortium is led by the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection Schleswig-Holstein (ICPP/ULD), Germany. The partners from eight European countries include the data protection authorities from Madrid (Agencia de Protección de Datos de la Communidad de Madrid, APDCM) and France (Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et de Libertés, CNIL), the Austrian Academy of Science, London Metropolitan University from the UK, Borking Consultancy from the Netherlands, Ernst and Young AB from Sweden, TÜV Informationstechnik GmbH from Germany, and VaF s.r.o. from Slovakia.

The contribution of HRSJ consisted mainly of comparative-european standard-setting and training, carried out by Prof. Douwe Korff, working closely with colleagues from the other organisations, in particular the ULD. He focussed on detailed analysis of the european data protection standards and, with those colleagues, provided a detailed set of criteria, with a manual and an extensive commentary - already much sought after by industry but for now available only to accredited EuroPriSe experts. He himself is the first and so far only UK-based
expert.

Under the scheme, IT products and IT-based services are audited in order to see if they can be certified as compliant with European regulations on privacy and data security. EuroPriSe uses a quality-assured procedure: an evaluation of the product or service by trusted legal and IT experts, followed by a cross-checking of the evaluation report by an independent and impartial certification body.

"We are happy to announce the permanent establishment of EuroPriSe to continue this successful project" says Dr. Thilo Weichert, Data Protection Commissioner for Germany’s northernmost state and head of ULD. "The requests for certification exceed our expectations. It shows that the EuroPriSe procedure offering private trusted evaluation and independent, impartial certification provides true added value for companies."