Research Article
A Study on the Lack of Enforcement of Data Protection Acts
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-642-11631-5_1, author={Thorben Burghardt and Klemens B\o{}hm and Erik Buchmann and J\'{y}rgen K\'{y}hling and Anastasios Sivridis}, title={A Study on the Lack of Enforcement of Data Protection Acts}, proceedings={Next Generation Society. Technological and Legal Issues. Third International Conference, e-Democracy 2009, Athens, Greece, September 23-25, 2009, Revised Selected Papers}, proceedings_a={E-DEMOCRACY}, year={2012}, month={5}, keywords={Privacy study lack of enforcement data protection acts}, doi={10.1007/978-3-642-11631-5_1} }- Thorben Burghardt
Klemens Böhm
Erik Buchmann
Jürgen Kühling
Anastasios Sivridis
Year: 2012
A Study on the Lack of Enforcement of Data Protection Acts
E-DEMOCRACY
Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-11631-5_1
Abstract
Data privacy is a fundamental human right, not only according to the EU perspective. Each EU state implements sophisticated data protection acts. Nevertheless, there are frequent media reports on data privacy violations. The scientific and the political community assume that data protection acts suffer from a lack of enforcement. This paper is an interdisciplinary study that examines this hypothesis by means of empirical facts on juridical assessment criteria – and validates it. We have inspected 100 service providers, from social online platforms to web shops. Our study considers legal requirements of the privacy policy and how providers ask for consent and react to requests for information or deletion of personal data. Our study is based on articles of German law that have a counterpart in the EU Directive 95/46/EC. Thus, our study is relevant for all EU states and all countries with similar regulations.