EU firing privacy shots across bows.....

Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, has promised tough new laws to curb privacy-breaching technology like body scanners and has also warned the social networking industry that it needs to do more to protect children using its services.

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She said there needed to be clarity as to how key principles like consent and transparency work in practice.

That data was safe no matter where the data controller was located.

There should be promotion of 'privacy by design'.

There should be stronger enforcement.

The basic principles of data protection should cover all areas of European life including police and judicial and dealings with countries outside the EU.

Reding named Facebook, MySpace and Twitter and warned that children's profiles on such sites should be private by default. She will report back on progress working with companies on 9 February.