The European Community’s Directive on Data Protection strictly limits how databa

Question

The European Community’s Directive on Data Protection strictly limits how database information is used and who has access to it. Some restrictions include registering all databases containing personal information with the countries in which they are operating, collecting data only with the consent of the subjects, and telling subjects of databases the intended and actual use of the databases. What effect might these restrictions have on global companies? In your opinion, should these types of restrictions be made into law? Why or why not? Should the United States bring its laws into agreement with the EU directive?

Explanation / Answer

European Community Data Protection Directive

The directive given by the European Community on data protection has many implications on the operations of global companies operating in the European Union regions. The data protection directive strictly limits the extent to which database information is used and the entities that can access it. The law allows the multinational companies to collect the limited amount of personal data that is actually needed for their own business operations thus limiting the overall outreach of the company to clients. The multinational companies are forced to invest a lot of resources in ensuring effective implementation of the requirements of the data protection directives. The companies commit a lot of resources on the issuance of guidelines and policies, conducting data protection training and adopting compliance measures. The service multinational companies are more affected by this law because they are mostly involved in information collection and dissemination hence they are much hit by the data protection directives.

Despite the adverse effects of the data protection directives, they should be made into law in order to be enforced fairly to all the multinational companies. Making the directives a law will formalize the entire directive and make multinational pay for the damages caused as a result of the breach of the law on data protection. The United States should bring its law into agreement with the European Union directive in order to protect many multinational companies which are based in the United States from the effects of the directive. The directive has adversely affected many multinational companies which are US bases such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft thus the need to make the United States laws into agreement with the directive. Such agreement will cut the cost of doing business by US-based multinational companies as they will be able to access client’s personal data from the European data automatically with minimal restrictions.

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