ENISA Report: Privacy & data protection challenges

Today, privacy and the protection of personal data are critical challenges in our modern society, as technology increasingly invades our everyday lives and becomes an integral part of what we do. And yet, data protection laws and regulations may be inadequate to address these new challenges.

Therefore, the European Network and Information Security Agency – ENISA established a Working Group on Privacy & Technology to analyse the gaps and the implications for the current EU legal framework in a report.

What does the report cover?

The ENISA Working Group offers a set of 13 key recommendations, including:

• The European Commission and the Member States should encourage an incentive system connected to a certification scheme and an effective economic sanctions systems, as well as tax incentives. Industry is recommended to e.g., always analyse privacy risk through Privacy Impact Assessment methodologies, when defining their privacy and security policy.
• Online Subject Access: a “Cinderella” human right? The EU Data Protection framework gives strong legal rights for individuals to learn what companies know about them – the right of “data subject access”. The implementation of this right is however not in pace with the online developments. ENISA and the Article 29 Working Party (WP) should therefore conduct a policy analysis on how to re-frame the legal right of subject access, to give individuals maximal data access at zero cost.
• To confront the challenge in keeping personal data of citizens within the EU jurisdiction and to provide a new tool that would enable users to manage proximity and distance with others in the digital space, both in a legal and a social sense, it is recommended that the Art. 29 WP and the EU Commission explore the notions of Digital Territory, property and space, e.g. to extend the principle of legal sanctuary in real life to the digital world

The report

Download the report with all 13 recommendations.

For further information

Press and Communications Officer – Ulf Bergstrom

Risk Management Expert – Barbara Daskala

Website – www.enisa.europa.eu