Cross-border data flows and privacy in global trade law: has trade trumped data protection?

This article is set against the complex backdrop of the evolution of the data-driven economy and its regulation, and seeks to provide a better contextualization of the topic of data protection as a matter of trade law. It looks at the recent proliferation of rules on data flows, specifically addressed in free trade agreements (FTAs), at how data protection has been framed in these treaties, as well as at the available reconciliation mechanisms developed to interface trade and privacy. The article explores the most advanced models that have been developed in this regard so far, with a focus on some US-led and EU-led treaties. These analyses build the basis for testing the conjecture as to whether trade law has gone too fast and too deep, encroaching on domestic privacy law developments that unfold at a much slower pace.