Christopher Wolf, founder of the Future of Privacy Forum and an attorney with Hogan Lovells, comments about recent political conflicts over privacy protection involving Israel and then takes it to a broader level. He writes:
International cooperation to promote privacy, which is essential in our information society, used to be fairly immune to politics. Clearly, that is no longer the case. But European leaders who are truly committed to privacy and understand the horrors that have been enabled by misuse of databases should stand up to the Irish red herring, and move to approve Israel’s status as adequate to handle EU data. And as for the Turkish hackers and their friends, the government in Ankara should take a stand against computer crime and enforce against the misuse of Israeli data. Indeed, such an effort may also help heal recent diplomatic wounds.
In the end, privacy is too important to be politicized.
Amen! Whether its Israel or any other country, we need to get beyond the religious and political issues to collaborate on a global approach to privacy and data protection.
Read the entire piece on Haaretz.com.