Digifesto

“Data protection” refers to the aspect of privacy that is concerned with the use and misuse of personal data by those that process it. Though widely debated, scholars continue to converge (e.g.) on ideal data protection consisting of alignment between the purposes the data processor will use the data for and the expectations of the user, along with collection limitations that reduce exposure to misuse. Through its extraterritorial enforcement mechanism, the GDPR has threatened to make these standards global.

The implication of these trends is that there will be a global field of data flows regulated by these kinds of rules. Many of the large and important actors that process user data can be held accountable to the law. Privacy violations by these actors will be due to a failure to act within the bounds of the law that applies to them.

On the other hand, there is also cybercrime, an economy of data theft and information flows that exists “outside the law”.

I wonder what proportion of data protection violations are due to dark data flows–flows of personal data that are handled by organizations operating outside of any effective regulation.

I’m trying to draw an analogy to a global phenomenon that I know little about but which strikes me as perhaps more pressing than data protection: the interrelated problems of money laundering, off-shore finance, and dark money contributions to election campaigns. While surely oversimplifying the issue, my impression is that the network of financial flows can be divided into those that are more and less regulated by effective global law. Wealth seeks out these opportunities in the dark corners.

How much personal data flows in these dark networks? And how much is it responsible for privacy violations around the world? Versus how much is data protection effectively in the domain of accountable organizations (that may just make mistakes here and there)? Or is the dichotomy false, with truly no firm boundary between licit and illicit data flow networks?