Closed petition Fisheries science falls foul of privacy rules

Closed on 26 September 2013

The use of high resolution fishing effort data in environmental studies allows a more realistic perspective on the wider ecological consequences of fishing disturbance. A new EU council regulation and its interpretation are currently hampering scientific access to this data and thus are endangering the provision of management advice based on best available knowledge. Withholding of this information will seriously undermine the quality and accuracy of scientific output and ultimately damage fishers' livelihoods through poorly advised management.
The European data protection supervisor states that the legislation does contain broad exceptions for data processing for scientific purposes, therefore we wish the government to debate how these broad exceptions could allow the use of such data for scientific purposes. http://www.nature.com/news/fisheries-science-falls-foul-of-privacy-rules-1.10788