City Research Online

Abstract

Although cross-border data flows are becoming increasingly important and prevalent, there is not yet an international legal framework for data protection. The current lack of international legal harmonisation on data protection has created compliance burdens and risks for companies that rely on cross-border data to operate and may also erode the effectiveness of data protection systems that have been established in jurisdictions like the European Union. This article draws attention to a conceptual barrier to comparative study and international harmonisation of data protection law, namely the divergent conceptions of privacy across different societies and the intricate relations between data protection and privacy. Considering the complications and difficulties caused by the conceptual barrier, this article suggests that data protection and privacy are better understood as interrelated but distinct concepts for the sake of comparative legal research. Such a distinction not only provides the possibility for comparative researchers to construct a relatively ideologically and culturally neutral theoretical framework for understanding data protection law, thereby facilitating the widely desired international harmonisation of data protection standards, but also gives data protection legal discourse the flexibility to consider and to address broader values that are imperilled by ubiquitous data processing in today’s information age.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Hong Kong Law Journal following peer review. The definitive published version Yang, L. & Yan, M. (2021). The Conceptual Barrier to Comparative Study and International Harmonisation of Data Protection Law. Hong Kong Law Journal, 51(3), pp. 917-950 is available online on Westlaw UK.
Subjects:	K Law > K Law (General)
Departments:	The City Law School The City Law School > Academic Programmes
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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