12. Calls on the Member States and the Commission to take urgent action to create a coherent legal framework to manage different types of health data and their use; stresses that the rapid success of social networking tools shows that individuals willingly share personal information and are not always aware of the implications of their decisions, while the terms and conditions of the new applications and tools collecting data are set by providers, often without adequate safeguards and protection; stresses that citizens’ confidence is essential for both domestic and crossborder eHealth services; emphasises the need to comply with the rules on privacy and perso ...[+++]nal data protection, since this is an essential prerequisite for the protection of citizens, for patients’ trust in eHealth services, and for the proper functioning and increased use of safe, secured and interoperable electronic communications and data storage systems, such as cloud computing, in the healthcare sector; emphasises that data protection measures should develop in the direction of strong individual protection, but in a way that does not hinder future health research; stresses that sensitive data, and in particular medical data, must be protected from hacking, leaks, privacy breaches and other forms of abuse;

The Guidelines also ensure specify that whenever state aid is granted to private operators, the aid must foster competition by requiring the beneficiary to prove open access to the publicly funded network for third party operators.

The providers of publicly available electronic communications services should inform their subscribers of the existence of calling and connected line identification in the network and of all services which are offered on the basis of calling and connected line identification as well as the privacy options which are available.

Past scheme of this kind have helped rural areas to sell cheese through the Internet, put in place a scheme opening up the RTD laboratories of big companies to small firms in Limburg in the Netherlands, create a network of "business angels" in Wales to bring additional private finance and know-how into small firms, or provide an on-line information system for citizens comprising a comprehensive database on economic social and cultural affairs among 15 cities in Galicia in Spain and the Norte region in Portugal.

The EBRD has also been supporting SMEs since its inception through small business programs, equity investments in banks, credit lines to banks, trade facilitation mechanisms and a considerable network of private equity funds.

They also provide examples of abuses of dominant positions by public operators (for instance, refusal to provide access to the network, discrimination, cross-subsidisation of non-reserved activities) and by private companies (e.g. abuse of standards or refusal to supply interfaces).