Processing of personnal data and protection of privacy in the telecommunications sector, ISDN

Due to the numerous changes to telecommunications technologies and the Council's delay in voting, the text submitted to the European Parliament at second reading had little in common with the text submitted in 1990. The new text should also apply henceforth to the protection of the legitimate interests of the subscribers/legal persons and not only the natural persons. As the telecommunications networks and services are of a transnational nature, the rapporteur gives an interpretation of the subsidiarity principle which limits the Member States' margin for manoeuvre and several amendments were adopted on these lines. Another significant amendment deletes the possibility for the Member States to allow operators to require a payment from subscribers if they do not wish their particulars to appear in a directory.�