Data Protection in the Internet: General
Report
Dário Moura Vicente and Sofia de Vasconcelos Casimiro
1 Introduction
1.1 Subject-Matter, Purpose and Scope of the Present Report
In recent years, data protection, i.e., the legal regulation of the collection, storage,
transmission and use of information concerning identified or identifiable individuals,
has become a major concern in most countries, as well as at the supranational and
international levels.
In fact, the emergence of computing technologies that allow, at ever lower costs,
the processing of increasing amounts of information, associated with the advent and
exponential use of the Internet and other communication networks and the widespread liberalization of the trans-border flow of information, have allowed the largescale collection and treatment of individual data, not only for scientific or commercial, but also for political uses.
A growing number of governmental and private organizations now possess and
currently use data processing in order to determine, predict and influence individual
behavior in all fields of human activity.
This inevitably entails new risks, not only from the perspective of individual
privacy, but also from those of other fundamental rights, such as the right not to be
discriminated, as well as of the fair competition between commercial enterprises and
of the proper functioning of democratic institutions.
D. Moura Vicente (*)
University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal
e-mail: dmouravicente@fd.ul.pt
S. de Vasconcelos Casimiro (*)
University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal
Portuguese Military Academy, Lisboa, Portugal
e-mail: svc@fd.ulisboa.pt
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
D. Moura Vicente, S. de Vasconcelos Casimiro (eds.), Data Protection in the
Internet, Ius Comparatum – Global Studies in Comparative Law 38,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28049-9_1
1
Report
Dário Moura Vicente and Sofia de Vasconcelos Casimiro
1 Introduction
1.1 Subject-Matter, Purpose and Scope of the Present Report
In recent years, data protection, i.e., the legal regulation of the collection, storage,
transmission and use of information concerning identified or identifiable individuals,
has become a major concern in most countries, as well as at the supranational and
international levels.
In fact, the emergence of computing technologies that allow, at ever lower costs,
the processing of increasing amounts of information, associated with the advent and
exponential use of the Internet and other communication networks and the widespread liberalization of the trans-border flow of information, have allowed the largescale collection and treatment of individual data, not only for scientific or commercial, but also for political uses.
A growing number of governmental and private organizations now possess and
currently use data processing in order to determine, predict and influence individual
behavior in all fields of human activity.
This inevitably entails new risks, not only from the perspective of individual
privacy, but also from those of other fundamental rights, such as the right not to be
discriminated, as well as of the fair competition between commercial enterprises and
of the proper functioning of democratic institutions.
D. Moura Vicente (*)
University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal
e-mail: dmouravicente@fd.ul.pt
S. de Vasconcelos Casimiro (*)
University of Lisbon, Lisboa, Portugal
Portuguese Military Academy, Lisboa, Portugal
e-mail: svc@fd.ulisboa.pt
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
D. Moura Vicente, S. de Vasconcelos Casimiro (eds.), Data Protection in the
Internet, Ius Comparatum – Global Studies in Comparative Law 38,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28049-9_1
1