Review of EU Data Protection Directive

The UK Information Commissioner's Office plans to commission a review of the EU Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC, which will cover its strengths and weaknesses and potential avenues for improvement of its application. This review will address concerns that certain provisions of the directive may no longer optimally serve their purpose of protecting data subjects against abuses of their personal data, especially given existing technical and societal changes that seem to favor facilitated and extended use of such data. The proposed study will consider a number of issues arising from the application of the directive and its impact by reviewing the broad canon of research available in this domain. This report describes in general terms the approach of the study. It also details the drivers and current contextual situation with regard to the directive and provides descriptions of the team members and each organization involved. The analysis will be accomplished by desk research into the aspects of the directive that are difficult to apply in practice or which do not contribute substantially to meeting its goals, supported by a focused set of interviews of key stakeholders to validate the information gathered. Exploration of promising avenues for the improvement of the regulatory landscape will be accomplished in a policy-orientated scenario workshop with a small number of carefully chosen participants.