The Meaning of ‘Accountability’ in the Information Privacy Context

There have been many innovations in the policy world of information privacy and data protection during the past 40 years. These range from the adoption of principles and guidelines, laws and directives, codes of practice, privacy-enhancing technologies, ‘privacy by design’, binding corporate rules, standard contractual clauses, and perhaps other devices. Some innovations are of long duration, universal, respected, and implemented with varying success, while others are adopted by few and scorned by many, perhaps ultimately to be remembered only as fleeting presences on the fashion catwalks of regulatory history. We can only use informed guesswork about whether privacy is better protected through these measures, because such judgements are not easily amenable to quantification. However, gains can be identified in terms of a growth of awareness, specific regulatory or judicial rulings, and instances of success in limiting or preventing the use of information processing and surveillance technologies and systems that would otherwise have enjoyed free rein with our personal information. Meanwhile, academic discourse develops arguments about the relationship between law and technology, about the role of software ‘code’ in embedding rules in information systems, and about how individual property solutions can be brought to bear upon the situation.