Data Protection In The Internet

Description

This book identifies and explains the different national approaches to data protection – the legal regulation of the collection, storage, transmission and use of information concerning identified or identifiable individuals – and determines the extent to which they could be harmonised in the foreseeable future. In recent years, data protection has become a major concern in many countries, as well as at supranational and international levels. In fact, the emergence of computing technologies that allow lower-cost processing of increasing amounts of information, associated with the advent and exponential use of the Internet and other communication networks and the widespread liberalization of the trans-border flow of information have enabled the large-scale collection and processing of personal data, not only for scientific or commercial uses, but also for political uses. A growing number of governmental and private organizations now possess and use data processing in order to determine, predict and influence individual behavior in all fields of human activity. This inevitably entails new risks, from the perspective of individual privacy, but also other fundamental rights, such as the right not to be discriminated against, fair competition between commercial enterprises and the proper functioning of democratic institutions. These phenomena have not been ignored from a legal point of view: at the national, supranational and international levels, an increasing number of regulatory instruments – including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation applicable as of 25 May 2018 – have been adopted with the purpose of preventing personal data misuse. Nevertheless, distinct national approaches still prevail in this domain, notably those that separate the comprehensive and detailed protective rules adopted in Europe since the 1995 Directive on the processing of personal data from the more fragmented and liberal attitude of American courts and legislators in this respect. In a globalized world, in which personal data can instantly circulate and be used simultaneously in communications networks that are ubiquitous by nature, these different national and regional approaches are a major source of legal conflict. Front Matter ....Pages i-viii Data Protection in the Internet: General Report (Dário Moura Vicente, Sofia de Vasconcelos Casimiro)....Pages 1-44 Right to Privacy and Personal Data Protection in Brazilian Law (Anderson Schreiber)....Pages 45-54 Data Protection and the Internet: Canada (Teresa Scassa)....Pages 55-76 Data Protection in the Internet: Cape Verde’s National Report (José Pina-Delgado)....Pages 77-114 National Report: Czech Republic (Radim Polčák, František Kasl, Jakub Míšek)....Pages 115-158 Data Protection in the Internet: French Report (Laurence Nicolas-Vullierme)....Pages 159-181 Data Protection in the Internet: National Report Germany (Christina Breunig, Martin Schmidt-Kessel)....Pages 183-209 Data Protection in the Internet: Greece (Vassilios Kourtis)....Pages 211-241 Italian National Report: Data Protection in the Internet (Vincenzo Zeno-Zencovich)....Pages 243-251 Data Protection in the Internet: Japanese National Report (Taro Komukai)....Pages 253-269 Data Protection in the Internet: The Portuguese Case (Alexandre Sousa Pinheiro)....Pages 271-283 Data Protection Regulations: Overview of the Romanian Legislation and Deficiencies (Elena Lazar, Dragos Nicolae Costescu)....Pages 285-307 Singapore Report: Data Protection in the Internet (Ee-Ing Ong)....Pages 309-347 Data Protection in the Internet: South Africa (Lukman Adebisi Abdulrauf)....Pages 349-370 Data Protection in the Internet: National Report Spain (Felisa María Corvo López)....Pages 371-395 Swiss Data Protection Law (Dominic N. Staiger)....Pages 397-408 Data Protection in the United States: U.S. National Report (Shawn Marie Boyne)....Pages 409-455 Data Protection in the Internet: A European Union Perspective (Pedro A. de Miguel Asensio)....Pages 457-477 Data Protection in International Trade Law (José Augusto Fontoura Costa)....Pages 479-517 UN Regulations (Thomas Hoeren)....Pages 519-543