Privacy and data protection online : from the Data Protection Directive to the General Data Protection Regulation

Privacy is not a simple subject, especially on-line privacy . Before we can even start to look at the substantive law, we need to ask some important preliminary questions. What kind of value is privacy? Is it enough that it be recognised as an ethical concept, or a social norm, or should the law formally protect it as a right? If it is a right, is it a “fundamental” one, what we sometimes call a basic human right, against which other laws may be judged and found lacking? And if the latter, how should it be balanced against other fundamental rights, such as rights to security and freedom of speech, with which it may well conflict? Most notably, in a time of terror and jihad threats, should the individual’s right to privacy cede or be reduced in response to the needs of the state to protect its people from terrorism and crime?