The statutory framework for the communications sector largely was enacted prior to the commercial development and deployment of digital technology, Internet Protocol (IP), broadband networks, and online voice, data, and video services. These new technologies have driven changes in market structure throughout the communications sector. In a technologically dynamic sector, the statutory framework cannot be modified every time there is a significant technological change. The challenge therefore is to create statutory language that is flexible enough to continue to foster articulated public policy objectives in the face of technological change, without artificially favouring either legacy technology or new technology. This book focuses on updating the statutory framework for communications for the digital age. The authors also provide statements and testimonies from hearings on lawful access to stored content, and geolocation privacy surveillance.

Data security, Commerce, Management, Organizations, Enterprises, Information exchange, Data, Information, Data processing, Data handling, Data transfer, Electronic mail, Internet, Legislation, Law, IT and Information Management: Data Protection

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act : promoting security and protecting privacy in the digital age : hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, second session, September 22, 2010.

Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this practical guide to privacy and data protection law in the EU covers every aspect of the subject, including the protection of private life as a fundamental – constitutional – right, the application of international and/or regional conventions protecting the right to privacy, privacy rights in the context of electronic communications or at the workplace, and the protection of individuals regarding the processing of personal data relating to them. Following a general introduction, the monograph assembles its information and guidance in two parts: (1) protection of privacy, including an in-depth overview of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and an analysis of the European e-Privacy Directive regarding the protection of privacy in electronic communications; (2) personal data protect on, including a detailed analysis of the provisions of the GDPR, an up-to-date overview of the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU and of the opinions and guidelines of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB).

It has become glaringly clear that any communicative act online is subject to breach by intelligence agencies, cybercriminals, advertising networks, employers, and corporate data miners, to mention the most obvious intruders. Internet users, seeing no other choice than to hop onto the web-based bandwagon, have come to depend on a networked communications environment that is fundamentally insecure. Now lawmakers worldwide are gearing up to intervene. Arguing for a stricter stance on protecting private communications security, this groundbreaking study offers a conceptual and legislative toolkit leading to a step-by-step regulatory model in EU law. The proposed model is tested in two detailed case studies on HTTPS and cloud communications. From the interlocking perspectives of fundamental rights, systems design, and political organization, the regulatory model proposed is tested on HTTPS, which covers the user-provider relationship in web browsing, and on "cloud" communications that affect interdomain and intradomain communications. The case studies are based on the infamous DigiNotar breach and the MUSCULAR programme disclosed by whistle-blower Edward Snowden and contain original legal, security economics, and computer science research, conducted jointly with scholars trained in these disciplines. Responding to a general positive human right to communications security that is emerging from European fundamental rights law, this book not only provides one of the first interdisciplinary studies to appear in the academic literature on EU communications security law, but also offers broad recommendations to the EU lawmaker and gives directions for future research. It is sure to become a first point of discussion, reference, and legislative action for policymakers and practitioners in Europe and beyond.

This book identifies and explains the different national approaches to data protection – the legal regulation of the collection, storage, transmission and use of information concerning identified or identifiable individuals – and determines the extent to which they could be harmonised in the foreseeable future. In recent years, data protection has become a major concern in many countries, as well as at supranational and international levels. In fact, the emergence of computing technologies that allow lower-cost processing of increasing amounts of information, associated with the advent and exponential use of the Internet and other communication networks and the widespread liberalization of the trans-border flow of information have enabled the large-scale collection and processing of personal data, not only for scientific or commercial uses, but also for political uses. A growing number of governmental and private organizations now possess and use data processing in order to determine, predict and influence individual behavior in all fields of human activity. This inevitably entails new risks, from the perspective of individual privacy, but also other fundamental rights, such as the right not to be discriminated against, fair competition between commercial enterprises and the proper functioning of democratic institutions. These phenomena have not been ignored from a legal point of view: at the national, supranational and international levels, an increasing number of regulatory instruments – including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation applicable as of 25 May 2018 – have been adopted with the purpose of preventing personal data misuse. Nevertheless, distinct national approaches still prevail in this domain, notably those that separate the comprehensive and detailed protective rules adopted in Europe since the 1995 Directive on the processing of personal data from the more fragmented and liberal attitude of American courts and legislators in this respect. In a globalized world, in which personal data can instantly circulate and be used simultaneously in communications networks that are ubiquitous by nature, these different national and regional approaches are a major source of legal conflict.