Divergent Formalities

There is wide divergence in the ways that liberal democracies view and protect individual privacy and identity. A recent multinational report sponsored by the European Commission compares legal and regulatory measures to enhance privacy and trust in the European Union, the United States, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia.¹ For each jurisdiction, the report examines self-regulatory and co-regulatory arrangements, enforcement mechanisms and the effectiveness of privacy and trust practices. Jurisdictions in which privacy is considered an inherent human right and is constitutionally protected tend to have a uniform regulatory framework that limits the way in which a data controller can collect