Blockchains and the GDPR pursue similar objectives where they seek to grant users greater control over their personal data. While the latter pursues this goal by imposing duties of care to centralised controllers and collectors of data, blockchains go a step beyond by trying to eliminate these...

Economics offer different but complementary approaches to understanding privacy and security. For this inaugural contribution to the new In Our Orbit department, I was asked to explain briefly their methodological differences and similarities, and why they matter in our thinking about security...

Various identity management solutions are emerging in different jurisdictions, with the goal of creating a unified and privacy-preserving identity management system bridging the offline with the online. Within this trend, the concept of self-sovereign identity has re-emerged. It is a concept...

We analyze personal data protection laws in the United States through the lenses of the economic theories of ex ante safety regulation, ex post liability and information disclosure. Specifically, we consider and contrast how legal and economic theories interpret privacy costs and the remedies to...

For the past eight years, Vietnam has steadily expanded and strengthened its legislative protections of privacy in relation to e-commerce, and in consumer transactions generally. Government Decree 52 of May 16, 2013 on e-commerce (Decree No. 52/2013/ND-CP), which took effect on July 1, 2013,...

Proposals for the reform or ‘modernisation’ of Council of Europe Data Protection Convention 108 have now been forwarded from the Convention’s Consultative Committee for consideration by the Council of Ministers. In most respects, the proposed changes greatly strengthen the Convention, and...

TRUSTe Inc. is the largest global provider of privacy certifications - ‘privacy seals’ - to businesses, with the ostensible purpose of assuring consumers that they can have confidence in the privacy practices of those businesses. Its operations in two of the most important (and...

Privacy and security tools can help users protect themselves online. Unfortunately, people are often unaware of such tools, and have potentially harmful misconceptions about the protections provided by the tools they know about. Effectively encouraging the adoption of privacy tools requires...