As the ePrivacy Regulation moves into trilogue negotiations, the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union (AmCham EU) calls on co-legislators to prioritise clarity and conistency in their negotiations; laying out top-level recommendations on scope and alignment with GDPR; permitted processing of data; and privacy settings. Further review of these areas will ensure that the objectives of the regulation - to build trust and confidence in services for both consumers and businesses in digital services - are best achieved. 

After four long years since the Commission’s proposal, the institutions' perseverance in bringing this important file to trilogues is comendable. However, in order to avoid limiting Europe’s data-driven economy we encourage negotiating parties to consider reviewing the areas of the draft regulation that we have touched upon in our paper ahead of forming trilogue compromise amendments.

Through this position paper, AmCham EU sets out three high-level points that can guide negotiators during trilogues to ensure Europe is able to continue to protect the confidentiality of communication while allowing for a competitive European data economy. Our first recommendation centres around the need to ensure the clarity of the scope of the regulation to align with the existing General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) whilst adopting a risk-based approach to the text to ensure consistency between the two. Furthermore, the legal basis for processing of the ePrivacy Regulation must be closely aligned with those of the GDPR. Finally, including lawful bases in Article 8 to allow use of storage capabilities on-device for limited processing activities is welcomed, as well as the deletion of Article 10, provided this does not hinder introducing language that facilitates incentives for further development of privacy-preserving technologies (PPT).