European Commission: Calls on telecommunications companies to contribute to the fight against coronavirus

Η Ευρωπαϊκή Επιτροπή calls them telecommunications companies contribute to ensuring the resilience of the network due to increased needs in the midst of coronavirus pandemic.

ΤHe also called on them to assist in the exchange of anonymous metadata of users in order to facilitate the development of models for predicting the spread of the coronavirus.

Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton had a relevant teleconference with CEOs of European telecommunications companies and with the GSMA (Association of Mobile Operators). The commissioner stressed the need to protect the most vulnerable consumers, as well as micro, small and medium-sized enterprises that find it difficult to pay their bills.

«All companies are committed to maintaining the smooth operation of the open internet and to monitoring and preventing any congestion. This is good news for all Europeans", Said Mr. Breton after the teleconference. The CEOs of the telecommunications companies, according to the Commission, welcomed the positive response of content providers (eg Netflix) to the Commission's call for a reduction in network load and said that they were already seeing major improvements.

The conference discussed the need to collect anonymized mobile telephony metadata in order to analyze coronavirus transmission patterns in a way that is fully consistent with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and privacy legislation in electronic communications.

Both sides also stressed the importance of protecting networks from cyberattacks and agreed to continue the discussion on the various ways of co-operation.

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