Data Protection and Privacy

The protection of personal data and privacy is an increasingly hot political issue concerning the European Union. This section will report on the controversies entailed in the processing of the Regulation on Protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and the free movement of such data (General Data Protection Regulation). The rapporteur was German Green lawyer, MEP Jan Albrecht. He had a tough time and ultimately produced a compromise that was not entirely satisfactory for either industry of citizen advocates.

If you are interested in data protection policy and the genesis of the GDPR, you may like my book The Closing of the Net which discusses how the policy was influenced by State and non-State actors.

EU 'historic' data protection rules highlight privacy paradox

Monica Horten

Published on 14 April 2016

The European Parliament today adopted a data protection package that is being described as 'historic' and monumental'. The new EU measures update data protection rules for the era of the Internet and social media, including the use of data by police and law enforcement. The hot buttons have been the transfer of data outside the EU – especially to the United States - and how the large digital corporations may exploit data for commercial purposes. For whose benefit is this law and how should we regard it?

Investigatory Powers Bill - is it leading the world over a cliff?

Monica Horten

Published on 23 March 2016

“The Home Secretary says it is world leading. Not all people agree with that. Some think it is leading the world over a cliff”. Not my words but those of David Anderson Q.C. speaking yesterday at a symposium on the Investigatory Powers Bill hosted by 25 Bedford Row barristers chambers.

The Investigatory Powers Bill comes up for scrutiny in Parliament tomorrow, as the British government tries to push it through before the end of the year. This is the controversial new law that will govern electronic surveillance. But legal experts, who are not usually given to emotive language, say the Bill is bad law, and nothing more than window dressing. From a public interest perspective, the government is rushing the Bill unnecessarily. How safe will our data be under the proposed regime? Will we fall over a digital cliff as the spooks get to play with our Internet connection records?

This report is my interpretation of the legal arguments presented at the 25 Bedford Row symposium on the Investigatory Powers Bill.

David Cameron’s comms data top list - with new content powers

Monica Horten

Published on 14 January 2015

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said he will put communications data at the top of his list for new laws after the May 7 general election. Assuming he is re-elected, he wants to extend the range of data that would be legally accessible to the police and intelligence services, on a scale thus far unprecedented. His proposals, justified on the basis of an increased terror threat, will also up the ante in terms of the technology companies that will be obligated to comply. The concern is that Mr Cameron’s implied multi-dimensional data retention requirement will also create an apparatus that, without sufficient safeguards and in the wrong hands, will result in a vastly disproportionate, over-arching and unacceptable violation of personal privacy.