LAW 391 - EU Privacy and Data Protection

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This course introduces students to the legal regime governing information privacy and data protection in the European Union. It examines how the EU legal framework recognizes privacy rights or interests and balances them against competing interests, and the ways that laws, regulations, actions by stakeholders, and societal norms protect individual privacy against government, corporations and private actors. The course combines a practical approach to the daily problems that a privacy lawyer will face with the theory necessary to understand how the law is developing. We will learn about the policy questions arising from data-driven technologies, the theory behind them, and the questions to ask when assessing information practices. The course may also address briefly privacy issues and laws in additional jurisdictions, such as the United States and China, for purposes of further comparison. Students will gain a broad understanding of the breadth, diversity and growing importance of the privacy field.