Crossing National Boundaries to Access Electronic Data: New Technology, Old Laws

Abstract

On June 5, 2013, Edward Snowden revealed to the world that the U.S. government had ordered Verizon to hand over data under the USA PATRIOT Act, and, the following day, Snowden unveiled NSA’s PRISM program that allowed the U.S. government to access voicemails, emails, texts, photos, videos, and files from the largest technology firms in the United States. Snowden revealed the NSA’s ‘collect it all’ mentality. The mass collection of data by the NSA pre-Snowden is in sharp contrast with the European Union (EU) Directive that establishes privacy as a fundamental human right. The difference with U.S. versus EU privacy policy is the European Court of Justice’s declaration that EU citizens have the ‘right to be forgotten’. The EU vigorously protects the privacy of its citizens so that before any data can be transferred to a non-EU State, the receiving country’s privacy policy has to be reviewed and approved by the EU Commission.