News and Research articles on Data protection

Going global: Comparing Chinese mobile applications’ data and user privacy governance at home and abroad

Lianrui Jia, University of Toronto
Lotus Ruan, University of Toronto
PUBLISHED ON: 16 Sep 2020 DOI: 10.14763/2020.3.1502

This paper examines data and privacy governance by four China-based mobile applications and their international versions - including the role of the state. It also highlights the role of platforms in gatekeeping mobile app privacy standards.

What if Facebook goes down? Ethical and legal considerations for the demise of big tech

Carl Öhman, University of Oxford
Nikita Aggarwal, University of Oxford
PUBLISHED ON: 11 Aug 2020 DOI: 10.14763/2020.3.1488

This paper examines the ethical and legal issues arising from the closure of a data-rich firms such as Facebook and provides four policy recommendations to mitigate the resulting harms to society.

The European Commission recently released its first review of two years of application of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). René Mahieu and Jef Ausloos do not agree with the largely positive self-assessment and explain their main points of contention by summarising their own submission to the Commission.

The regulation of online political micro-targeting in Europe

Tom Dobber, University of Amsterdam
Ronan Ó Fathaigh, University of Amsterdam
Frederik J. Zuiderveen Borgesius, Radboud University
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Dec 2019 DOI: 10.14763/2019.4.1440

This paper discusses how online political micro-targeting is regulated in Europe, from the perspective of data protection law, freedom of expression, and political advertising rules.

Citizen or consumer? Contrasting Australia and Europe’s data protection policies

James Meese, University of Technology Sydney
Punit Jagasia, University of Technology Sydney
James Arvanitakis, Western Sydney University
PUBLISHED ON: 30 Jun 2019 DOI: 10.14763/2019.2.1409

This paper examines data protection policies in Australia and Europe and outlines how both frameworks evoke different notions of citizenship.

After a process that took more than five years, Serbia finally received a new Law on Personal Data Protection [in Serbian] - adopted by the National Assembly last November. The law closely follows EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), almost to the point of literal translation into Serbian. That was expected, due to Serbia’s EU membership candidacy.

Online stores can offer each customer a different price. This study analyses why most people find such online price discrimination unfair and unacceptable, and why they think it should be banned.

There is an increase in the Orwellian nature of schemes and programmes being launched in India, in spite of the absence of concrete privacy and data protection laws. While a major step towards mass surveillance was taken a few years ago in the form of “Aadhaar”, the central and state governments have subsequently adopted schemes which involve collection and processing of voluminous amounts of data.