The Data Protection Directive, officially Directive 95/46/EC, enacted in October 1995, was a European Union directive which regulated the processing of personal data within the European Union (EU) and the free movement of such data. The Data Protection Directive was an important component of EU privacy and human rights law. The principles set out in the Data Protection Directive were aimed at the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms in the processing of personal data.
Internet privacy involves the right or mandate of personal privacy concerning the storage, re-purposing, provision to third parties, and display of information pertaining to oneself via the Internet. Internet privacy is a subset of data privacy. Privacy concerns have been articulated from the beginnings of large-scale computer sharing and especially relate to mass surveillance enabled by the emergence of computer technologies. Privacy can entail either personally identifiable information (PII) or non-PII information such as a site visitor's behaviour on a website.
Information privacy is the relationship between the collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, contextual information norms, and the legal and political issues surrounding them. It is also known as data privacy or data protection. Data privacy is challenging since attempts to use data while protecting an individual's privacy preferences and personally identifiable information. The fields of computer security, data security, and information security all design and use software, hardware, and human resources to address this issue.
The General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679, abbreviated GDPR) is a European Union regulation on Information privacy in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of EU privacy law and human rights law, in particular Article 8(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. It also governs the transfer of personal data outside the EU and EEA.
There are several national data protection authorities across the world, tasked with protecting information privacy. In the European Union and the EFTA member countries, their status was formalized by the Data Protection Directive and they were involved in the Madrid Resolution. This project is a part of the work of the International Law Commission of the United Nations. On the European level, it is the G29 and the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS).
