Reinventing Data Protection?

data. Furthermore, the European Union established clear basic principles for the collection, storage and use of personal data by governments, businesses and other organizations or individuals in Directive 95/46/EC and Directive 2002/58/EC on Privacy and Electronic communications. Nonetheless, the twenty-?rst century citizen – utilizing the full potential of what ICT-technology has to offer – seems to develop a digital persona that becomes increasingly part of his individual social identity. From this perspective, control over personal information is control over an aspect of the identity one projects in the world. The right to privacy is the freedom from unreasonable constraints on one’s own identity. Transactiondata–bothtraf?candlocationdata–deserveourparticularattention. As we make phone calls, send e-mails or SMS messages, data trails are generated within public networks that we use for these communications. While traf?c data are necessary for the provision of communication services, they are also very sensitive data. They can give a complete picture of a person’s contacts, habits, interests, act- ities and whereabouts. Location data, especially if very precise, can be used for the provision of services such as route guidance, location of stolen or missing property, tourist information, etc. In case of emergency, they can be helpful in dispatching assistance and rescue teams to the location of a person in distress. However, p- cessing location data in mobile communication networks also creates the possibility of permanent surveillance.

This book is about data protection, privacy and liberty and the way these fundamental values of our societies are protected and enforced, particularly in their interaction with the ever developing capacities and possibilities of information and communication technologies.

The authors are all closely involved in data protection and privacy. They represent the stakeholders in the debate: practitioners, civil liberties advocates, civil servants, data protection commissioners and academics. Their contributions evaluate current European data protection law against the background of the introduction of increasingly powerful, miniaturized, ubiquitous and autonomic forms of computing. The book assesses data protection and privacy law by analyzing the actual problems (trans-border data flows, proportionality of the processing, and sensitive data) and identifying lacunae and bottlenecks, while at the same time looking at prospects for the future (web 2.0., RFID, profiling) and suggesting paths for a rethinking and reinvention of the fundamental principles and concepts.

From this perspective the recent constitutional acknowledgment of data protection as a fundamental right has a transformative power and should create the opportunity for a dynamic, participative, inductive and democratic process of ‘networked’ re-invention of data protection. The present book aims to make a contribution by seizing on this opportunity.