Most individual countries worldwide now have their own legal framework with respect to Data Protection and Direct Marketing. However, standards vary widely from country to country. In recent decades, a number of collective mandates have been initiated which attempt to standardise the treatment of data flows between countries, some more successfully than others. These are commonly referred to as there is ambiguity over how legally enforceable such initiatives are:
“The common feature of all these initiatives is that they are non-binding international instruments, or in international law parlance, soft law.”
(The EU Data Protection Directive: An Engine of a Global Regime, Michael D. Birnhack, 2008).
Company Net has drafted a Global Data Protection White Paper, the purpose of which is to set out the historical background to the emergence of these initiatives, and to summarise the current position which seems to favour the EU Data Protection Directive (and its associated directives, the EU Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications, and the EU Data Retention Directive) as the most dominant, and most stringent initiative worldwide. That said, there are still significant complexities and anomalies of the treatment of data even within EU member countries, even within the EU. This document assesses some of these complexities. You can view it at: Global Data Protection White Paper.
Posted by Howie 
