New Challenges to Data Protection - Final Report

Abstract:     
This is the Final Report of a major study commissioned by the European Commission as a basis for its review of the European data protection regime.

The purpose of the study was to identify the challenges for the protection of personal data produced by current social and technical phenomena such as: the Internet; globalisation; the increasing ubiquity of personal data and personal data collection; the increasing power and capacity of computers and other data-processing devices; special new technologies such as RFID, biometrics, face-recognition, etc.; increased surveillance (and "dataveillance"); and increased uses of personal data for purposes for which they were not originally collected, in particular in relation to national security and the fight against organised crime and terrorism - and to produce a report containing a comparative analysis of the responses that different regulatory and non-regulatory systems (within the EU and outside it) offer to those challenges, and that provides guidance on whether the legal framework of the main EC Directive on data protection (Directive 95/46/EC) still provides appropriate protection or whether amendments should be considered in the light of best solutions identified. This is that report. Douwe Korff was the Team Leader for this study and Ian Brown his fellow core expert. Other experts provided country reports and/or important further advice and greatly contributed to this study. They are: Peter Blume (DK), Chris Hoofnagle (USA), Graham Greenleaf (AUS), Lilian Mitrou (GR) and Filip Pospisil (CR) (experts) and Ross Anderson (UK), Caspar Bowden (UK), Katrin Nyman-Metcalf (EST) and Paul Whitehouse (UK) (advisers).

Note: An Executive Summary of this report is also available from SSRN, as are French and German translations of both this Final Report and that Executive Summary.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 59

Keywords: privacy, data protection

JEL Classification: K2, L5, O33

Accepted Paper Series