Obstacles To Transatlantic Harmonization Of Data Privacy Law In Context[Obstacles À L’Harmonisation Transatlantique Du Droit De La Protection Des Données Personnelles Dans Leur Contexte]

Globalization seems to call for the harmonization of laws, especially in sectors affecting global business, and this is all the truer with respect to laws affecting the technology industry, with the facility of its cross-border communications networks. Data privacy law on both sides of the Atlantic benefits from common origins but eventually divergence occurred, causing compliance challenges for companies and the potential halting of cross-border data flows from the European Union to the United States. Harmonization could possibly obviate such difficulties, and there is a window of opportunity to achieve this with discussion in the United States of a potential federal data privacy law. After setting out the historical context, this study posits and details three major obstacles to full-scale transatlantic harmonization of data privacy law, from the perspective of what has become the predominant data privacy model-that of the European Union. These are: laissez-faire policy and neoliberalism in the United States (and resulting focus on self-regulation there), the lobbying power of the U.S. technology industry giants in a conducive U.S. legislative system, and differing constitutional provisions on both sides of the Atlantic.