The EU and US Data Protection Approaches and their Sustainability Essay

The EU and US Data Protection Approaches and their Sustainability - Essay Example The US has also mounted a scathing attack at the EU Data Protection Directive claiming that it is fast becoming outdated and with time its practicability in implementation will deteriorate (Bercic and George, 2009). Herein after this paper takes a look at the different approaches used by the US and the EU to protect individual’s personal data and which among the two approaches is sustainable in the long run. Data Protection in the Europe With the internet boom starting to take place in the mid-90s, the European countries saw it fit to come up with one regulatory framework that will ensure that the data is about to be generated and shared among users will be safe. Instead of each country independently regulating their own information technology industry, common guidelines were instituted on where each country will base their data protection laws. This regulatory framework was known as the EU Data Protection Directive (Long and Quek, 2002). All member countries, who are also sig natories of the European Commission on Human Rights (ECHR), were required to enforce the provisions therein in within the first three years. The EU Data Protection Directive This is a directive that is meant to protect data and regulate its usage within the European Union. It has 34 articles providing specific instructions about how data should be handled in specific situation. It is based on 3 principles; transparency, legitimate purpose and proportionality (Tavani, 2007). The issue of transparency is covered from article 7 through 12. Using this principle the Directive states that the data subject reserves a right to be informed when his personal data is being collected for processing. The data controller is the person or the... This essay focuses on the US and the EU that are among the blocs that have been on the forefront to promote data protection and hence privacy. The right to privacy is a fundamental human right that is presented as a main focus of the essay. Whereas the US has no specific regulation scheme that is designed to regulate the collection, processing and transfer of personal information, the EU has one. The US has also mounted a scathing attack at the EU Data Protection Directive claiming that it is fast becoming outdated and with time its practicability in implementation will deteriorate. Herein after this essay takes a look at the different approaches used by the US and the EU to protect individual’s personal data and which among the two approaches is sustainable in the long run. After taking into considerations all these factors that were explored by the researcher, it is clear that the EU approach is more sustainable in the long run. The reasons are that though it is sparingly fl exible it does not require this flexibility as it is not the final regulation but just the framework, the member countries can revise their data protection rules as the environment changes provided they are within the framework. The current EU Data Protection Directive is still serving the critical stimulus role to taking data protection very seriously, abandoning it would be disastrous, and instead it should be a reference model for other countries or blocs. The idea of an international standard is the only way to foster globalization in this technological era.