The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America in the Light of the European Union Data Protection Model

Abstract

The question of adequacy of data protection model in the United States is one of the most important in transatlantic business and politic relations. The fact that European Commission’s decisions recognizing the adequacy have been annulled twice put relations between EU and US in very difficult phase. In this article I aim to analyse whether basis guarantees for privacy protection in the United States in the shape of the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution are adequate in the meaning of data protection model in EU. By looking at the practice of interpreting of the Fourth Amendment and art. 8 of European Convention of Human Rights, in line with police directive and GDPR I try to answer the questions if the Fourth Amendment protection gives enough guarantees to ensure respect towards privacy and data protection rights of individuals.