Transborder data transfers: concepts, regulatory approaches and new legislative initiatives

Abstract

Data protection rules are relatively new in legal history; nevertheless, during the last fifty years several new societal topics evidenced a need for extended legislative action. Amongst others, the special problems related to the transborder flow of data merit attention. From a comparative perspective, European regulations are quite advanced, setting a high level of data protection. In the United States and in Asia, the emphasis is more on self-regulatory approaches, but the increase in global data transfers also influences understandings in these areas. We live in an information society. Data are becoming more and more important in the business world as well as in private relations. Paul Schwartz refers to a ‘massive growth in the complexity and volume’ of transborder data flows, accompanied by a change in the nature of such transfers in that they, in fact, no longer constitute point-to-point transmissions, but ‘occur...