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Accountable Surveillance Practices: Is the EU Moving in the Right Direction?

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Privacy Technologies and Policy (APF 2014)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 8450))

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Abstract

The European Union is introducing into the Data Protection Package a new data protection principle, the principle of accountability. Data controllers will be compelled to adopt policies, organizational and technical measures to ensure and be able to demonstrate compliance with the legal framework. The expected benefits are threefold: to foster trust in personal data management practices of data controllers, to increase visibility of personal data processing activities and to raise data controllers’ privacy awareness. Surveillance practices, because of their inherent opacity, could greatly benefit from reinforced accountability obligations to gain public’s trust. This paper critically analyses whether the policy options taken by the European Union to operationalise the principle of accountability are likely to meet this goal.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. KU Leuven – Interdisciplinary Centre for Law & ICT (ICRI) – iMinds – B-CCENTRE, Leuven, Belgium

    Fanny Coudert

Authors
  1. Fanny Coudert
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering (ESAT), KU Leuven and iMinds, Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, Bus 2446, 3001, Leuven, Belgium

    Bart Preneel

  2. Information Security and Data Protection Unit, ENISA, 1 Vasilissis Sofias, Marousi, 15124, Athens, Greece

    Demosthenes Ikonomou

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© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Coudert, F. (2014). Accountable Surveillance Practices: Is the EU Moving in the Right Direction?. In: Preneel, B., Ikonomou, D. (eds) Privacy Technologies and Policy. APF 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8450. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06749-0_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06749-0_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-06748-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-06749-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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