Introduction to the survey

 
 3% of survey complete.
The European Commission, Directorate-General CONNECT has commissioned Deloitte to carry out an Evaluation and review of Directive 2002/58 on privacy and the electronic communication sector (SMART 2016/0080). This Directive is commonly referred to as the ePrivacy Directive (the “ePD”).

As part of this study, Deloitte is carrying out an online survey complementing the European Commission’s public consultation concerning the ePD. The deadline for the completion of the survey is July 31, 2016.

The objective of the present online survey is to gather information:
  • To evaluate the performance of the Directive, i.e. in terms of their effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, coherence and EU added value;
  • To identify the costs and benefits associated with the ePD, including e.g. compliance costs;
  • To assess the impacts of potential amendments / revisions of the ePD or alternative policy measures (i.e. the Policy Options), incl. cost reduction potentials, as well as wider legal, economic and societal impacts.
As the public consultation emphasises the qualitative aspects of the assessment of the ePD, this online survey is focused on gathering quantitative information.

In contrast to the European Commission’s public consultation, this online survey is only targeted at businesses, including SMEs:
  • Providers of electronic communication networks and providers of electronic communications services;
  • Providers of over the top services, i.e. information society service providers that provide among others (functionally equivalent) communications services over the Internet (e.g. Voice over IP, instant Messaging);
  • Providers of Internet content (e.g. publishers, digital platforms);
  • Providers of online security services or products (e.g; anti-virus software providers);
  • Manufacturers / providers of Electronic Communication Services (ECS) equipment (smartphone, tablets); and
  • Other interested sectors (e.g. advertising companies).
The main areas covered by this survey are:
  • Key characteristics of the businesses;
  • Problems and benefits the ePD has brought about for businesses;
  • Tasks of competent authorities concerning the implementation of the ePD;
  • Costs the ePD brought about for businesses;
  • The costs businesses face in more detail;
  • Wider effects of the implementation of the ePD; and
  • Future considerations.
However, you may need to co-operate with other departments or services in your organisation to be able to provide input to the questions relevant to you. This can take extra time. The online survey contains filtering questions. This means that you will only receive questions relevant for your business, depending on e.g. the types of services offered by or the size of your business.

Your opinion is important for the European Commission. The contribution to the survey is your opportunity to impact on potential changes to the legislative framework in a sector crucial to your business. This may inter alia include possible costs and benefits for businesses and your own enterprise in particular.

We will keep your answer confidential; the results of the survey will be only presented in an aggregated way with no possibility to trace back the results to individual contributions to this survey. In case of questions related to the substance of the questionnaire or related matters, please contact Florian Linz (flinz@deloitte.de) and Antonio Gonçalves (antgoncalves@deloitte.com).

Thank you for your time!

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