The plethora of privacy principles available to the market should be comforting, but somehow falls short. Of course, the Fair Information Practices Principles (1974) and the OECD Privacy Guidelines (1980) include the classic foundation for reasonable and respectful protections. Yet, the advance of powerful technologies, including personal handheld devices connected directly to the Internet, present new challenges to these principles.
Recent principles discussions, focused on preventing harms and clarifying accountability, support new interpretations of the older principles and help companies implement procedures designed to promote privacy.
Hard questions remain.
- Has the efficacy of Notice and Consent passed by in the Internet Age?
- Can we reasonably expect people to understand complex data management enough to provide substantially reasonable informed consent?
- Is the concept of Data Subject Access practical in our networked environments?
