Legal Policy Mechanisms

Abstract

Transparency is one of the core principles of data protection legislation in Europe, beyond Europe and all around the world. The European understanding is different than the American one as the European understanding is that individuals should be aware of ‘who knows what about them.’ Often enough the establishment of the European understanding is hard to enact, enforce and above all make understandable to the user because the user is confronted with a multitude of different purposes for data handling, often hidden in lengthy legal text of privacy notices especially when surfing the web. Therefore, a number of approaches are currently trying to tackle this problem, by offering the user tools and mechanisms for a better understanding of what is happening with their data. The work presented in this chapter is an outcome of PrimeLife’s research on Next Generation Policies, it aims at a better understanding of the legal aspects of the processing of personal data, by looking at the current status of this processing in different contexts and structuring these.