“Faraway, So Close:” Transatlantic Data Flows and the Protection of Privacy

Deutsches Haus at NYU presents a lecture by Thomas Wischmeyer, the Deutsches Haus at NYU DAAD Visiting Fellow, on “Faraway, So Close: Transatlantic Data Flows and the Protection of Privacy.” 

In the 1990s and early 2000s many scholars predicted a convergence of privacy law in the EU and the U.S. They have been proven wrong. What we have witnessed is not the emergence of shared constitutional standards or of a transatlantic privacy treaty. Rather, constitutional law in Europe and the U.S. is heading in diametrically opposite directions: While the U.S. Supreme Court has effectively abandoned the right to privacy, the European Court of Justice is engaging in its hyper-constitutionalization. This puts transatlantic data flow regulation in a difficult spot. Given that most of us use technology that sends data across the Atlantic on a daily basis, finding a common framework belongs to today’s most pressing political and legal problems. In his presentation, Thomas Wischmeyer argues for a new regime that takes the quality of informational privacy as a fundamental right into account, but also considers the external effects constitutional choices have in a connected world.

From Deutsches Haus NYU.