Privacy in the digital world: Towards international legislation

Abstract:

In today’s digital world, personal privacy has become the number one issue for consumers (Benassi, 1999). Consumers’ confidence in personal privacy is directly affecting and limiting the growth of Internet commercial development. Therefore, it is necessary to address the privacy concerns of consumers for the interests of all parties involved. Examples of the different ways of penetrating consumer privacy are reviewed. National and international efforts to formulate regulatory and self–regulatory programs to protect consumer privacy are examined. Different privacy enhancing technologies are treated. The problems of current national and international efforts to protect consumer privacy, including privacy enhancing technologies, are addressed. We conclude that international efforts are needed with a role for the United Nations (UN). The complexity and the multidimensional factors that affect our proposed international legislation are discussed.

http://firstmonday.org/article/view/2146/2153