Technology & Innovation

Companies, digital transformation and information privacy: the next steps

April 07, 2016

Global

April 07, 2016

Global
Becca Lipman

Editor, EMEA

Becca is currently a supporting editor and writer for The Economist Intelligence Unit's thought leadership division in the Americas and EMEA. Her primary focus is on healthcare policy and financial market trends. She has also recently developed research programmes that analyse themes in infrastructure and smart cities, as well as C-suite perspectives on talent strategy, small business and IT development. 
 
Before joining the EIU in New York, and later in London, Becca worked as senior editor at Wall Street & Technology where she reported on IT advances in capital markets. She previously held posts as lead editor for a US stock brokerage. Becca earned her bachelor’s degree in both economics and environmental studies from New York University.

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The internet and sovereign privacy laws have been on a collision course for decades, with growing tensions from all jurisdictions.

The lack of trust burst into view last October, with the European Court of Justice’s rejection of the Safe Harbour agreement, a set of guidelines that had previously been understood as providing sufficient security for European citizens’ private data to be held in or used by companies in the United States. The ruling about Safe Harbour’s inadequacy and questions about the proposed replacement agreement, Privacy Shield, which was hammered out by EU and US negotiators, have created a legal limbo and have left US companies that do business in the EU uncertain how to proceed.

Furthermore, online privacy is not just a transatlantic debate. Concern about these issues is gathering steam around the world, including in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. But what happens between Europe and the US will shape the data-sovereignty debate for years to come, both because of the prominence of companies headquartered in both places and because the EU is a sort of highest common denominator when it comes to privacy issues. The outcome of the current dispute may even prompt companies to rethink the idea--largely unquestioned in recent years-- that holding onto data is an unqualified good.  

In order to build greater understanding of the state of play in the development and navigation of privacy laws, The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) conducted in-depth interviews with legal, technical and regulatory subject-matter experts on all side of the debate. This report explores the challenges that global businesses face when addressing the complex and fluctuating policy environment and offers a set of best practices that companies can follow to meet the evolving privacy and security demands.

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