The Madrid Resolution and Prospects for Transnational PIAs

Abstract

If a field were to be identified that would exemplify an area in which the law has difficulties in keeping up with reality, it would have to be the Internet. The concepts of sovereignty and territoriality, traditional limitations to the international application of laws, are being superseded every day by a reality in which interconnection and globalisation are no longer the exception but the norm against a background of vast telecommunications networks. In this respect, the profusion of international flows of data in the “information age” has highlighted the need for privacy legislation that is consistent at a global level.