The Future of Data Privacy Laws: Balancing Security, Innovation, and Human Rights in the Digital Era
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AUTHOR : REMAZ OSMAN
Introduction
In the digital age data has become an important, vulnerable, and valuable part in shaping companies, governments and economies. As technology advances in an unpredictable pace, there is always a great need for strong data privacy laws. Governments worldwide are dealing with current challenges on how to balance demands on national security, technical innovation, and the demand for fundamental human rights. While strict data regulations can safeguard personal information, overregulation may restrict innovation minimizing economic growth. The rise of artificial intelligence, biometric tracking, and mass data collection further complicates this equilibrium. This article discusses the future of data privacy laws, analysing how policy-makers, corporations and civil society on collaboration to create a structure that safeguards privacy without compromising innovation and economic progress.
The evolution of Data Privacy Laws
In order to understand the possible future progress of data privacy laws, it's important to grasp its evolution. Data privacy laws have emerged due to the excessive digitalization of personal information and the potential risks involved in its collection, use and storage. The concept of privacy can be traced back to the late 19th century where the right to privacy has first emerged in an 1890 article by Samuel Warren and Louis Brandies highlighting the need to protect personal information. Forward to the Mid-20th century where The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) included the rights to privacy as a fundamental human right. Data protection laws arose in (1981) after The Council of Europe adopted the Data protection convention, this convention was the first legally binding international instrument in the data protection field, after this convention the parties were required to pass a domestic legislative protecting personal data and labelling its protection and privacy as a fundamental right.
Recently, in 2018 The General Data protection Regulation (GDP) was passed, it provided strict regulations for reporting breaches on how to store data it safeguards EU citizens' and upheld the rights to know exactly what data is collected, GDPR's privacy principles originated from the federal trade commission's original five privacy principles created in 1988 , since its considered one of the strictest privacy laws in the world, it requires organizations inside and outside Europe to secure the personal identifiable information of EU citizens. Furthermore, GDPR has lead other countries outside Europe to adopt strict data privacy regulations, Brazil has adopted the LGDP, Brazil's first comprehensive data protection law.
The LGDP applies to a natural person and a legal entity (public or private law), irrespective of (1) the means used for the processing, (2) the country in which it's headquarter is located, or (3) the country where the data are located In October 20, 2021, the Brazil Senate passed a legislative including protection of personal data, including digital data in its constitution as a fundamental right. Now a days as AI, IoT, Big Data surfaces leading to implications surfacing for example IoT tracks assets and can detect crime , Big Data provides resource allocation and biometric analysis , AI stores information and acts as a research engine , while they serve as beneficial tools they still bring lots of ethical implication primarily complication regarding privacy and data protection. However, implementing data governance framework that insure informed consent , data minimization and the secure handling of sensitive personal information .Individuals must have control over the data taken from them including access, rectifying and deleting it , international complication must be included where best practices must be shared and insuring that ethical considerations are being upheld across jurisdictions.
Future challenges and solutions
As the field of artificial intelligence surfaces and advances it brings with it implication regarding the safety of personal information, machine learning algorithms continue to form the backbone of many AI systems used in data collection. In 2023 a study by Guan et al showed a successful application of federated learning in a multi-institutional medical institution allowing the development of diagnostic models without sharing sensitive data across institutions, proving that it's not compulsory however, it's still seen as a challenge that’s going to continue to the future due to the importance of these informations to the success of corporates and financial institutions.
AI now is being used for fraudulent transactions, where people's voices are being copied by cybercriminals, some banks use voice ID to approve of people's identity. an article by BBC decided to run a test where they investigated the power of AI voice cloning , furthermore the bank was called and the voice was used as a password by using phrases such as '' my voice is my password'' for phone banking , the phone call was later approved. This is an issue that is being dealt with in currant times however it's still considered as an issue that will still occur in future times if banks did not update their security , this issue will still occur through normal calls with loved ones where a certain amount will be asked to be transferred to cybercriminals, cybercriminals can also use AI technologies such as deepfake by sending convincing videos of people to family members to run fraudulent transactions, a solution for this would be providing certain technologies to identify deepfakes, and scam calls and also passing strict regulation and educating individuals on scams done by using AI.
Block chain is considered the future for financial transaction, it's considered the backbone of crypto currencies, it records transactions and is linked in a peer-to-peer network, blockchain can make financial transactions easier however it includes data privacy issues, blockchain is considered an open ledger of information that can be used to track and record transactions making the financial data accessible by the public, however since blockchain uses pseudonymity not anonymity transactions on the blockchain are linked to public addresses not directly to individual's identity but they are traceable since people can view every transaction you’ve made through that address, the transactions are also not isolated, they're linked to each other leading to privacy leaks or transactions being linked to certain person or organization , a solution for this is Zero Knowledge Proofs or (ZKPs) it's a form of cryptographic protocol that allows one party known as the '' prover'' to demonstrate to the other party knows as the ''verifier'' that they know a specific piece of information or that a certain statement is true without revealing another details about the information itself.
Conclusion
In conclusion the question is if we can balance security, innovation and rights and the answer is yes, governments can pass regulation that protects people identity and data by allowing them to adjust it, governments should also value transparency when it comes to financial transactions and must value identity and shift the focus of digital innovation to coming up with technologies that cut through fraudulent transactions and that is accessible by everyone, the role of public awareness and digital literacy is also very important since it makes that job easier and makes it harder for cybercriminals to commit crimes, finally its always important to acknowledge that the near future is going to be data driven and digital dependent making the process of innovation and upgrades easier, passing rigid regulation that limit innovation could lead to an inversed outcome that will not work positively on the world in the near future.
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