Let's not kill all the privacy laws (and lawyers)

One of the most famous quotes from Shakespeare is ‘The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers’.1 Judging by comments one reads and hears, this sentiment is shared by many who are frustrated with the limitations of data protection and privacy law. It is often stated that lawyers have made privacy law and regulation too bureaucratic, and that they are responsible for much of the unintelligible verbiage (such as dense privacy policies) that annoy and confuse individuals. The law also stands accused of constantly falling behind technological developments; of using terminology that is overly bureaucratic and formalistic (a favourite example is the use of the term ‘data subject’, rather than the more understandable ‘individual’, in Article 2 of the EU Data Protection Directive 95/46); and of providing ineffective protection for privacy as compared to technological solutions