The civic transformation of data privacy implementation in Europe

Abstract

Recent data protection laws in the EU institutionalise NGO engagement with regulators and enable new mechanisms for bottom-up policy implementation. The article studies thirteen European NGOs and maps their contribution to policy implementation based on a novel typology for understanding their scope (national vs. transnational) and goals (direct vs. strategic) of actions. The article asks: (1) how do NGOs vary in their contribution to data privacy implementation in Europe? and (2) what are the implications of those variations for differentiated policy implementation? Through analyses of NGOs’ informational activities and GDPR complaints, the article finds that NGOs converge towards privileging a transnational strategic civic-enforcement model, prioritising pan-European privacy cases to alter policy implementation, over individual citizen advocacy and empowerment at the national level. Civic engagement has served to mitigate cross-border policy implementation disparities, while preserving considerable regulatory discretion nationally. Integrating NGOs into the analysis of differential privacy policy implementation helps in highlighting the evolving nature of EU civil liberties.

Keywords:

• Privacy implementation
• civic engagement
• GDPR
• differentiated policy implementation

Acknowledgements

Authors are listed alphabetically and have contributed equally to the preparation of the manuscript. The authors are grateful for feedback received during the 2022 Privacy Law Scholars Conference (PLSC) and for the wonderful comments and suggestions from anonymous reviewers of earlier versions of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 News articles refer to all articles published on NGO websites, regarding NGO activities, between the years 2018 to 2022.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Inbar Mizarhi-Borohovich

Inbar Mizrahi-Borohovich is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Sociology, University of Haifa. Her research focuses on the regulatory governance of financial capitalism. Her research lies at the intersection of public policy, financial regulation and consumer protection, with a focus on the ways in which the regulatory landscape can be shaped to address emerging challenges in the digital economy. On the empirical level, her research deals with technology and finance. [[email protected]]

Abraham Newman

Abraham Newman (homepage) is Professor of Government at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. His research focuses on the politics generated by globalisation. He is the co-author of Of Privacy and Power: The Transatlantic Struggle over Freedom and Security (Princeton University Press 2019). He is the winner of the 2022–2023 Berlin Prize and his work has appeared in journals including Comparative Political Studies, International Organisation, International Security, Nature, Science and World Politics. [[email protected]]

Ido Sivan-Sevilla

Ido Sivan-Sevilla (homepage) is an Assistant Professor of Information Policy, University of Maryland. His research focuses on the struggle of policy systems to govern harms from technology. He has written articles for The Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Risk Research, Journal of Public Policy, and Policy & Internet. [[email protected]]