Raw Data: E.U. Reaction to Data Sharing Revelations Grew Slowly

On a continent where courts have ruled that access to the Internet is a fundamental human right, the disclosure last month of the covert program drew criticism from privacy officials and activists in Britain, France and Germany.

But the volume in Europe on privacy issues has been greater than the actual movement on the ground: Initial reactions to the leak by Edward J. Snowden, a former worker at the U.S. National Security Agency, have not led to concrete demands for greater controls on data sharing or stricter privacy controls that could hinder the operations of those U.S. technology giants in Europe.

In Brussels, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers are working to update the 1995 data protection law covering the E.U. countries. While the earlier Prism disclosures had given more ammunition to proponents of stricter privacy controls, their effect on the debate has seemed limited.

“The Prism revelations have made parliamentarians more receptive to stronger measures,” said Joe McNamee, the executive director of European Digital Rights, a Brussels group advocating greater restrictions in data sharing between the European Union and the United States. “But the reaction has not been as strong as we had hoped for.”

Before the allegations in the magazine Der Spiegel that the United States has bugged E.U. offices, the full European Parliament had been scheduled to debate a resolution on Wednesday that would have at least expressed concern about the broad nature of Prism and its collection of private data from E.U. residents. The resolution was also expected to do the same about a British program, Tempora, which involved tapping undersea communication cables.

It was unclear whether the debate — and a vote set for Thursday — would still be held, but the resolution was likely to have been moderate in tone to reflect support for U.S. security concerns, and it was not intended to carry any force of law.

“There are those in Parliament who want a hard line where the E.U. doesn’t share any data with the United States, but this is a minority,” said a legislative staff worker in Brussels who was involved in negotiations to draft a compromise resolution on the issue. The aide, who works for one of the Parliament’s most senior members, declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the topic.

Meanwhile, a student group in Austria asked regulators in Ireland, Germany and Luxembourg on Wednesday to bar the European arms of Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo from sending the personal data of E.U. citizens to the United States for processing.

The group, Europe-v-Facebook.org, formed two years ago to protest the social network’s privacy policies in Europe, is arguing that the existence of Prism proves that the United States cannot guarantee the necessary “adequate level of protection” required of countries that are certified to process the personal data of E.U. citizens.

“There is a reasonable suspicion that there is widespread surveillance,” Max Schrems, the founder of the group, said.

Mr. Schrems, a 25-year-old law student at the University of Vienna, said the group’s best chance of obtaining sanctions might be in Germany, which has the strictest data protection laws in the Union. The Austrian group filed a complaint with the data protection regulator in Bavaria, a German state where Yahoo has a large office, asking that restrictions be placed on the company’s U.S.-bound data transfers.

Spokesmen for Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo declined to comment on the complaint. Google was not included in the initial complaints, Mr. Schrems said, because Europeans who sign up for its services contract directly with Google in America, not with its European subsidiaries.

(The German complaint focused on Yahoo because of its big office in Munich. The Irish complaint focused on Apple and Facebook because they have large offices in Dublin. The Luxembourg complaint focused on Microsoft, whose Skype subsidiary is in Luxembourg.)

On Thursday, the Bavarian regulator transferred the case to the German federal data protection commissioner, Peter Schaar. In a June 7 blog post, Mr. Schaar had described the existence and reach of the Prism program as “outrageous,” adding that such systematic surveillance without prior judicial consent would be illegal in Germany.

But it was unclear whether his office could block any data transfer activity by Yahoo’s German headquarters in Munich. Juliane Heinrich, a spokeswoman for Mr. Schaar in Berlin, said the German regulator was analyzing the issue of jurisdiction to determine whether and how to proceed against Yahoo.

The Brussels-based American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union said it supported an E.U.-U.S. government dialogue on the data transfer issue.

“Prism needs to be addressed at government level,” said Anna McNally of the American Chamber.

The New Old Age Blog: Online Habits Coming Slowly to Older Adults

Older adults hit a digital milestone last year: For the first time since the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project began conducting surveys, a majority (53 percent) of people over age 65 used the Internet. The proportion has since inched upward, to 54 percent.

Which certainly represents progress. When Pew first began tracking Internet use in 2000, only 13 percent of seniors were online. But it remains a fairly anemic number compared to the rest of the adult population, more than 80 percent of whom use the Internet.

And among the older old, those over age 77, only about a third are online. Yet that’s the cohort most likely to become isolated by physical limitations, poor transportation and the loss of social connections — the group, in other words, who might particularly benefit from being able to interact with the world digitally, for everything from banking and ordering groceries to e-mailing faraway friends.

I wonder, too, how much satisfaction we can really take in the growth of wired seniors, as Pew used to call them. Back in 2000, more than 40 percent of the group just behind them, those aged 50 to 64, were online. So maybe we haven’t made as much progress as it appears. Maybe, 13 years later, the people online just got older.

Laurie Orlov, a tech industry analyst who writes the Aging in Place Technology Watch blog, has been fuming about this particular digital divide for years. “It matters more than ever,” she told me. “Organizations keep thinking they’ll save a buck by no longer using paper.”

When it comes to government programs, financial and insurance statements, health information or discount coupons, “the assumption is that you’re online.”

Even simple tasks like finding phone numbers for local businesses may soon require Web access. How long will there be print yellow pages? How long will there be movie listings in print newspapers? For that matter, how long will there be print newspapers? Without Internet access, older people could feel even more cut off than many already do.

A number of programs have tried to address this disparity, but they tend to be small-scale and local.

A few years ago, I wrote about a “virtual senior center”: a nonprofit organization acquired computers for about a dozen low-income New York City seniors, provided instruction, then linked their users to discussions at an actual senior center in Queens. A worthy demonstration project, but three years later it still has fewer than 100 participants.

Or take the company called It’s Never 2 Late, which has placed its simplified touch-screen computer systems in 1,200 nursing homes and assisted-living communities, plus some adult day programs. Another good idea with a “but”: most seniors don’t live in congregate settings.

AARP last year started a $169-a-year subscription service that gives its members unlimited phone, online or in-store access to Best Buy’s Geek Squad agents, who can help them choose, install, use and repair electronics.

I hear enough muttering from boomers whose parents call whenever they encounter a computer glitch to think turning over this job to the Geek Squad might be a smart move, but it doesn’t seem like one that can bring large numbers of low-income seniors onto the Internet.

“We want faster adoption,” Ms. Orlov said. “Little efforts start up here and there, but it’s not a national effort to get 100 percent of seniors online.”

She’s convinced, by the way, that older people can make the leap (as many readers here are about to point out, I know) and that most will want to. “With some of the devices available today, if a person is open and interested and there’s something on there that’s worth the trouble — like video of family members or the ability to Skype with family — they can learn to use a computer or a tablet,” she said.

Money will be the big obstacle, of course. As Ms. Orlov points out, it’s going to take big national organizations with deep pockets — foundations, technology corporations, Internet providers and cell carriers, AARP — to undertake a bigger, faster and more effective effort than our current piecemeal approach.

But it may take less than we would have thought a decade back, because tablets are cheaper than most desktops and laptops. And tablet ownership is growing among seniors, Pew reports. Just within 2012, the proportion of the over-65 population with a tablet climbed to 15 percent from 8 percent. Among those over age 77, tablet ownership jumped to 12 percent from 3 percent.

This might be the way. Other ideas are welcomed.

Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”