ABSTRACT
The end of the last century saw a dramatic turn in the global governance of personal information. In a relatively brief span of three decades, some forty countries adopted comprehensive rules covering the collection and transmission of data for the public and private sector. These rules included the creation of independent regulatory agencies empowered to monitor and oversee their enforcement. The majority of the advanced industrial countries that comprise the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) – with the notable exception of the United States – and countries ranging from Argentina to Albania now share a strikingly similar set of regulations, which set a relatively high bar for privacy protection.
