Topic 7: Privacy in the Digital Age - Data Protection, Unsolicited communication, and Interception of communications
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This topic considers three important aspects of privacy which arise from the electronic trading environment.
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Introduction

After the horrors of the Second World War, Human Rights were at the forefront of the international law agenda. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 proclaimed under Article 12 that;

‘No-one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.’

At a regional level, the European Convention on Human Rights provides for respect for the right to a private life under Article 8.

‘8.1 Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

8.2 There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of the right except such as in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the英语论文网 【http://www.51lunwen.org】 country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.’

The development of e-transactions and e-commerce is predicated upon the accumulation of client, customer and supplier information. A balance must be struck between an acceptable level of privacy in relation to the data that must necessarily be made available to carry out a transaction.

Indeed it has been stated that,
‘…Each one of us that becomes an Internet user, operates a mobile phone or uses a card of some kind, is generating data of potential value to others…the real issue is how to strike a balance between exploiting the technological potential of digitisation and the need to reign-in potential abuse of our personalised electronic traces.’

Issues of territorial law can arise, where a balance must be sought between privacy against the interests of a State, and which may vary form country to country, and the fact that the web is a world-wide network. Western European nations, and particularly the U.K., have been very careful to guard against information being collected and used in a manner which could be regarded as the thin end of a totalitarian wedge, or tending to undermine democratic freedoms. The U.K. passed the Data Protection Act in 1984, which, as chance would have it, was the year chosen by George Orwell fo 本文来自：英语论文网 【http://www.51lunwen.org】