Privacy: Issues, Policies, Statements - Global Privacy Standards

Many industrialized countries possess far more stringent legislative rules protecting online users' privacy than exist in the U.S. The emerging global standard at the beginning of the 21st century was the European Commission's Directive on Data Protection, which took effect in 1998. It restricts all unauthorized transmission of personal data of EU citizens to any countries lacking legal standards that guarantee a similar level of online privacy protection. Since the directive's adoption, many other countries began drafting similar rules, among them Argentina, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, and New Zealand. Some countries also created governmental privacy directors or agencies to oversee Internet privacy.

For U.S. companies to exchange Internet users' personal data with EU members, they must participate in the Safe Harbor data-sharing agreement, which was devised by the EU and the U.S. Department of Commerce. The agreement, which became operational in November 2000, holds American businesses to implement data and privacy protection standards equivalent to those in the EU directive. Once a company complies with the Safe Harbor program, EU regulators can sue them only for breach of their own policies, not the standards of the EU Directive.