New Challenges to Data Protection Study - Working Paper No. 2: Data Protection Laws in the EU: The Difficulties in Meeting the Challenges Posed by Global Social and Technical Developments

Abstract

This the second of two working papers produced for the "New Challenges to Data Protection" study, commissioned by the European Commission. This paper discusses the difficulties that arise if one tries to apply the main EC Directive on data protection (Directive 95/46/EC) and the data protection laws in the EU Member States that implement it, as currently drafted, to the new global social and technical context described in Working Paper No. 1, by Dr. Ian Brown. It does this by means of a comparative-legal analysis, taking into account the six European and five non-European countries studied: Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, United Kingdom, USA (Federal, California and New Jersey), Australia, Hong Kong, India and Japan. NB: Working Paper No. 1, on "The Challenges to European Data Protection Laws and Principles," can be found on Ian Brown's ssrn webpage: http://ssrn.com/author=892424. The findings of the paper presented here are summarised in another document: "Comparative Chart: Divergencies Between Data Protection Laws in the EU," which can be separately downloaded from the present ssrn page, as can the country reports on France, Germany and the UK, also written by Douwe Korff.