The rapid development of information technology has exacerbated the need for robust personal data protection, the right to which is safeguarded by both European Union (EU) and Council of Europe (CoE) instruments. Safeguarding this important right entails new and significant challenges as technological advances expand the frontiers of areas such as surveillance, communication interception and data storage. This handbook is designed to familiarise legal practitioners not specialised in data protection with this emerging area of the law. It provides an overview of the EU’s and the CoE’s applicable legal frameworks. It also explains key case law, summarising major rulings of both the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights. In addition, it presents hypothetical scenarios that serve as practical illustrations of the diverse issues encountered in this ever-evolving field.

The new edition of this acclaimed book has been expanded to give a fully updated overview of European data protection law, with a focus on data protection compliance issues affecting companies, and incorporating the important legal developments which have taken place since the last edition was published. These include the first three cases of the European Court of Justice interpreting the EU Data Protection Directive (95/46); accession of new Member States to the EU; the new Data Retention Directive; new developments on international data transfers, such as model contracts and binding corporate rules; and conflicts between US security requirements and EU data protection law. The book provides pragmatic guidance for companies faced with data protection compliance issues. It includes extensive appendices, such as texts of the relevant directives, model contracts, and overviews of Member State implementations.

Although Europe has a significant legal data protection framework, built up around EU Directive 95/46/EC and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the question of whether data protection and its legal framework are ‘in good health’ is increasingly being posed. Advanced technologies raise fundamental issues regarding key concepts of data protection. Falling storage prices, increasing chips performance, the fact that technology is becoming increasingly embedded and ubiquitous, the convergence of technologies and other technological developments are broadening the scope and possibilities of applications rapidly. Society however, is also changing, affecting the privacy and data protection landscape. The ‘demand’ for free services, security, convenience, governance, etc, changes the mindsets of all the stakeholders involved. Privacy is being proclaimed dead or at least worthy of dying by the captains of industry; governments and policy makers are having to manoeuvre between competing and incompatible aims; and citizens and customers are considered to be indifferent. In the year in which the plans for the revision of the Data Protection Directive will be revealed, the current volume brings together a number of chapters highlighting issues, describing and discussing practices, and offering conceptual analysis of core concepts within the domain of privacy and data protection. The book’s first part focuses on surveillance, profiling and prediction; the second on regulation, enforcement, and security; and the third on some of the fundamental concepts in the area of privacy and data protection. Reading the various chapters it appears that the ‘patient’ needs to be cured of quite some weak spots, illnesses and malformations. European data protection is at a turning point and the new challenges are not only accentuating the existing flaws and the anticipated difficulties, but also, more positively, the merits and the need for strong and accurate data protection practices and rules in Europe, and elsewhere.

Developed from the casebook Information Privacy Law, this short paperback contains key cases and materials focusing on privacy issues related to the GDPR and data protection in the European Union. Topics covered include the GDPR, Schrems cases, the right to be forgotten, and international data transfers. This book is designed for use in courses and seminars on: Comparative and international law EU law Privacy law Information law Consumer law Topics covered include: GDPR Schrems I and Schrems II cases The right to be forgotten International data transfers, including an account of the rise and fall of the Privacy Shield European Court of Human Rights cases European Court of Justice cases Comparative analysis of EU and US privacy law

Previous edition, 1st, published in 1999.