Information Society Watch

October 4, 2007, BBC News Service

Internet law professor Michael Geist considers the possibility that technology is threatening the legal foundations of privacy law. He reports that this year's International Data Protection and Privacy Commissioner's conference addressed possible responses, including privacy audits of both public and private sector organisations and the potential for global cooperation in a world where personal data slips effortlessly across borders. Yet there exists ambivalence about the effectiveness of these measures, arising from the realisation that the legal foundation of privacy law is being rendered increasingly irrelevant. Critics argue that both notice and consent are today little more than legal fictions, as consumers ignore overly complex notices and shrinking technology makes it virtually impossible to obtain informed consumer consent. Governments' greater surveillance of citizens in the name of security is our future course and that there is little that the privacy community can do about it.

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