Defining Digital Rights - Data Protection and Intellectual Property

Abstract

There is concern in Europe that the legitimate use of technologies to protect intellectual property could be detrimental to the protection of data of individuals. There is an increasing gap between the protection of individuals in the off-line and on-line worlds, especially considering generalized tracing and profiling of individuals. The EU Working Party on Protection of Individuals with Regard to Protection of Personal Data has prepared a document that calls for development of technical tools offering privacy compliant properties and more generally for a transparent and limited use of unique identifiers, with a choice option for the users. Further, it is concluded that investigations undertaken by copyright holders must be performed in a clear legal framework, especially as to the information that can legally be collected, and to the enforcement powers that can be attributed to these actors. The original document may be found at http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/privacy/docs/wpdocs/2005/wp104_en.pdf. The following are extracts from this report.