Small chips with big potential: New EU recommendations make sure 21 century bar codes respect privacy

Today, the European Commission adopted a set of recommendations to make sure that everyone involved in the design or operation of technology using smart chips respects the individual's fundamental right to privacy and data protection, contained in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union proclaimed on 14 December 2007.

Thus access to public administrations’ electronic procedures often implies the need for the individuals involved to identify themselves (i.e. allowing the administration to make sure that the persons are who they claim to be by checking their personal credentials[1]) and the need to provide an electronic signature allowing the administration to identify the signatory as well as to make sure that the data submitted has not been altered during transmission). The main barrier is the lack of interoperability, be it legal, technical or organisational.

The aim of the provision in Article 7(4) is hence to make sure that, whenever traders make commercial offers to consumers, they make available simultaneously, in an intelligible and unambiguous manner, enough data and do not mislead them by omitting important information.

EQUAL contributes to effective policy making by finding out, on the ground, what works and what does not, and making sure that all key stakeholders can learn from it.

The Round Table's proposals may be summarised as follows: With regard to bank loans: - the Round Table recommends that communication between banks and SMEs should be improved, bank staff should receive better training and the range of financial products should be better geared to the requirements of SMEs; - in order to increase access to loans, it also advocates wider use of the facilities offered by the guarantee funds and mutual guarantee schemes; - as regards the European Investment Fund (EIF) and the interest rebates on European Investment Bank (EIB) loans, the Round Table's main recommendations are: * to earmark, in the short term, a sizeable proportion of EIF operations for SME funding; * to enable the EIF to operate flexibly to ta ...[+++]ke account of the actual situation in each Member State, e.g. by assisting national guarantee schemes, including mutual guarantee schemes; * to make sure that it is the end beneficiaries, i.e. SMEs, that derive the full benefit from the advantages offered by the EIF and the system of interest rebates on EIB loans and that the intermediaries are specialised in funding SMEs; * to make sure that the job-creation condition to which the granting of interest rebates is subject is applied as flexibly as possible.