| NOTAS: | "In today’s data-driven economy, protection of personal data and privacy is increasingly a challenge; this is particularly true for Internet companies and telecoms and ICT providers. Regulators worldwide are aware of the importance of the issue, and are trying to address it with rules that reflect recent technological evolution.
The recent tendency of regulators to tighten the grip on the processing and, most importantly, transfer of personal data is often affected by scandals that have obtained wide coverage and focused attention on privacy matters. However, there is a high risk to passing overly prescriptive rules that may hinder innovation and disrupt the business models in the industries mentioned above. This may in turn result in a failure to protect consumers effectively.
Until recently, the EU had the most comprehensive framework for data protection regulations, covering all industries involved in handling data and regulating all aspects of data collection, processing, and transfer. However, legislators in other countries are catching up and setting equally advanced protection standards. By contrast, data protection rules in the US are patchy and inconsistent, both across states and across industries. In the US, personal data is often collected and used without explicit consent, and although some protection is in place, this is mainly to avoid unwanted marketing or to satisfy minimum guarantees against requests from public organizations." |
