The Globalization of Privacy

A bstract . The Council of Europe is currently considering a directive that would harmonize data protection laws throughout the European Community. If approved, this directive would affect exchanges of personal information between European countries and the United States. This article argues that the proposed Data Protection Directive will lead to a strengthening of American privacy laws. This will occur not as a simple reaction to a perceived economic threat, but because a number of social, economic and political changes in the privacy environment in the United States converge at this time. The European Directive presents an opportunity for policy change to occur, but will not be the cause of the change.