Stewart Baker writes:
Privacy kills. Fish, this time.
The main difference between US and European data protection law is this: in the United States, laws are usually written to solve a particular privacy problem, whereas in Europe all personal data is broadly protected by a set of grand principles.
Both privacy regimes produce plenty of unanticipated consequences and lots of what I’ve called privacy victims. But at least the American approach confines the privacy victims and the unhappy surprises to a few identifiable areas, like hospitals under HIPAA. The European system casts its net far wider and thus drags in victims from every part of the sea.
Literally. The latest victims of Europe’s privacy laws are fish.
Read more on The Volokh Conspiracy.