Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Data protection in the age of big data

Nature Electronics volume 2, pages 6–7 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

Europe’s data protection laws must evolve to guard against pervasive inferential analytics in nascent digital technologies such as edge computing.

Unfortunately, many nascent digital technologies seem destined to undermine the aims of GDPR. Digital services and distributed devices now increasingly operate on a linked-up basis, in which information is shared between networks of devices and service providers, making use of unique user identifiers to provide seamless data sharing and personalized experiences using machine learning and AI. Such seamless experiences are rooted in identification technologies used to manage authentication, data access and transfer, and link together disparate sources of user data for inferential analytics. Clearly, these hubs can be of significant commercial value. In 2017, a consortium of some of the biggest tech firms announced the Data Transfer Project, an initiative designed to facilitate exercise of users’ right to data portability under the GDPR via common data interoperability standards and data transfer mechanisms.

This is a preview of subscription content

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

References

  1. Wachter, S. Law Innov. Technol. 10, 266–294 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Peppet, S. R. Texas Law Rev. 93, 85–176 (2014).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Wachter, S. Comput. Law Secur. Rev. 34, 436–449 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Ohm, P. UCLA Law Rev. 57, 1701–1777 (2009).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Hildebrandt, M. in Profiling the European Citizen (eds Hildebrandt, M. & Gutwirth, S.) 303–343 (Springer, Dordrecht, 2008).

  6. Mittelstadt, B. Philos. Technol. 30, 475–494 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. YS, M and S v. Minister voor Immigratie, Integratie en Asiel [2014] ECJ C-141/12, C-372/12.

  8. Peter Nowak v. Data Protection Commissioner [2017] ECJ C‑434/16.

  9. Kathleen Egan and Margaret Hackett v. European Parliament [2012] EGC T‑190/10.

  10. Zarsky, T. Seton Hall Law Rev. 47, 995–1020 (2017).

    Google Scholar 

  11. Wachter, S. & Mittelstadt, B. Columbia Bus. Law Rev. (in the press); https://ssrn.com/abstract=3248829

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oxford, Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford, UK

    Sandra Wachter

  2. The Alan Turing Institute, London, UK

    Sandra Wachter

Authors
  1. Sandra Wachter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sandra Wachter.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wachter, S. Data protection in the age of big data. Nat Electron 2, 6–7 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-018-0193-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-018-0193-y

Further reading

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing