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Each day, millions of pieces of personal data – social security numbers, credit card records, and medical histories – are hacked. While the cost of identity theft to the US economy has reaching $50 billion annually, the collection, processing, and security of this data is not regulated for many companies.

Georgetown political scientist, Abraham Newman, argues in his new book, Protectors of Privacy: Regulating Personal Data in the Global Economy (Cornell University Press, 2008) that Europe has developed an alternative to the laissez faire approach. “Data privacy has emerged as one of the top public policy problems of the information age,” writes Newman, an assistant professor in the Walsh School of Foreign Service. “All advanced industrial societies have faced essentially the same dilemma – how to manage a vast pool of personal information flows – but their governments have chosen substantially different solutions.”

Newman explores not only why countries have opted for different regulations but also how these rules affect their citizens, businesses, and bureaucracies. In particular, the author explains the European Union’s development of comprehensive data privacy for both the public and the private sectors with dedicated regulatory agencies – data privacy authorities – that monitor and enforce privacy rules.

As data zips across borders over digital networks, Europe has taken on the international dimension of data privacy as well. “Europe, long viewed as the little brother of international economic governance, has transformed the global privacy debate by pressing for high levels of protection, especially in the private sector,” Newman says, “As a result, Europe is raising the level of protection across the globe.”

Becoming a point of conflict between the United States and Europe, Newman adds that the new security environment is leading to a series of trade and security disputes and complicating trans-Atlantic cooperation on counterterrorism. Monitoring airline passenger records, biometric data in passports, and telephone surveillance are just a few of the privacy related issues roiling relations.

In the wake of the current economic crisis, though, the research underscores the international pitfalls of domestic deregulation. “Europe’s institutional revolution has created, in certain sectors, the regulatory capacity that allows it to challenge U.S. dominance in international economic governance,” he writes. “The United States now faces mounting challenges to develop, set and enforce the rules of global markets from one of its strongest allies, the European Union.”

Michael Smith from the School of International Relations at the University of St. Andrews believes the book addresses “an increasingly important issue that cuts across international security, international political economy, international law and comparative political economy." Mark Thatcher, Lecturer at the London School of Economics, concurs, “Newman offers a first-class and cogently argued analysis of data privacy rules in the United States, France and Germany,”

Abraham Newman teaches as an assistant professor in the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is the co-editor of How Revolutionary Was the Digital Revolution? National Responses, Market Transitions, and Global Technology. Stanford University Press 2006.

About Georgetown University

Georgetown University is the oldest and largest Catholic and Jesuit university in America, founded in 1789 by Archbishop John Carroll. Georgetown today is a major student-centered, international, research university offering respected undergraduate, graduate and professional programs in Washington, DC, Doha, Qatar and around the world. For more information about Georgetown University, visit www.georgetown.edu.