Rethinking Privacy Beyond Borders Developing Transnational Rights on Data Privacy

Abstract

The tensions between transnational data exchange by police authorities as well as intelligence agencies on the one hand and the need for data privacy on the other hand are increasing. The European Union follows an ambivalent approach intensifying data exchange as well as reforming data protection in the context of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters. Based on eu constitutional law, the cjeu defends privacy rights in the eu. Beyond the European perspective, the paper argues based on a comparison of data privacy in the eu, us and Australia in favour of the establishment and strengthening of international data privacy rights. A more detailed concept of international digital rights would be necessary to address all different issues of data privacy in the context of trans-border surveillance. While intelligence agencies and police cooperation are already linked on a global level, the protection of data privacy is not organized on an international level in an equivalent way.