Europe’s Top Digital-Privacy Watchdog Zeros In on U.S. Tech GiantsAccording to The New York Times`s article, the latest standoff between Europe and American tech companies runs through a quiet street just north of the Louvre Museum, past chic cafes and part of the French national library, to the ornate office of Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin.From here, Ms. Falque-Pierrotin has emerged as one of the most important watchdogs for how companies likeFacebook and Google handle the billions of digital bits of personal data — like names, dates and contacts — routinely collected on Europeans. Since 2011, she has been France’s top privacy regulator, and for the last two years, she has led a group of European data-protection officials. In those posts, Ms. Falque-Pierrotin has regularly agitated companies to better safeguard people’s data.Her role will come into even sharper focus in the coming weeks. Ms. Falque-Pierrotin, empowered by Europe’s highest court, will be at the heart of efforts to police how digital data is transferred outside of the European Union, a central aspect of many European and American businesses. That role will be amplified even further if, as is now widely expected, American and European negotiators fail to reach a new data-transferring deal by Feb. 1.The biggest American tech companies face intensifying scrutiny by European regulators, with — pressure that could potentially curb their sizable profits in the region and affect how they operate around the world. One thing is clear, she says: The practices of American businesses, and tech companies in particular, are squarely in her sights.“American companies do not have an immediate right to collect data on our citizens,” Ms. Falque-Pierrotin, 56, a blunt-speaking career civil servant, said recently in an interview, her voice increasingly animated. “If they are on our soil, then they need to live with the consequences.”
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