Data protection: The future of privacy

Abstract

The Art. 29 Working Party (hereinafter “Art. 29 WP”) is an influential body comprised of representatives from the Member State Data Protection Authorities 2 2 Kuner, C. European Data Protection Law, 2nd ed., p. 9. established under the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC, has recently issued an opinion with the Working Party on Police and Justice. This is quite significant, since the opinion sets out some of the issues that will need to be addressed in the lead up to the revision of the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC. 3 3 At the time of writing, the revision of the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC has been postponed until November 2010. See Hunton and Williams Privacy Law Blog: European Commission postpones revision of the Data Protection Directive available at http://www.huntonprivacyblog.com/2010/08/articles/european-union-1/european-commission-postpones-revision-of-the-general-data-protection-directive/, dated 3rd August 2010. This comes at a time, when there have been discussions on the current application of the European Data Protection Directive to the internet, 4 4 See UK ICO. RAND: Review of the European Data Protection Directive available at http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/data_protection/detailed_specialist_guides/review_of_eu_dp_directive.pdf, dated May 2009 (examines the strengths and weaknesses of the European Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC); Art. 29 Working Party. Press release regarding the review of the Data Protection Regulatory Framework available at http://ec.europa.eu/justice/policies/privacy/news/docs/pr_15_07_10_en.pdf, dated 15 July 2010. (such as social networking) and the recent European Commission’s consultation on the legal framework for the fundamental right to protection of personal data. Not least, there have been a number of cases brought before the European Court of Justice dealing with the partial implementation of the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC. 5 5 See C-518/07 European Commission v Germany, OJ C 37, 9.2.2008. Available at http://ec.europa.eu/justice/policies/privacy/law/index_en.htm. The aim of this paper is to consider in detail the issues set out by the Art. 29 WP and the likely challenges in revising the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC.