What are the United States and EU Privacy Laws?

The EU Privacy Law was passed in March of '06. This directive legally requires all Internet and telephone service providers to keep record of communication data for two years. Telephone providers record: the telephone number, the name and address of registered users, whether it was a phone call or a text message etc, and the location of both users. Internet service providers record the userID, the date and time of log-on and log-off, and even the phone number for dial up access.

As stated in my previous blog, the United States Privacy Law helps protect individuals from infringment from the government. There are problems with the American Privacy Law. The Georgetown Law Journal stated the following:

• More broadly, since American privacy law often remains focused around individualistic conceptions of privacy, it has not fully embraced protecting confidentiality in relationships. In many other contexts, such as trade secrets and business confidences, American law readily provides remedies against unwarranted breaches of trust. But in the domain of privacy, American law has not progressed nearly as far as English law in recognizing and protecting trust in relationships. An increased recognition of a confidentiality-based conception of privacy might also have significant implications in other areas of American privacy law that developed under the influence of Warren and Brandeis. [7] (Richards, Neil M. and Solove, Daniel J., "Privacy's Other Path: Recovering the Law of Confidentiality" . Georgetown Law Journal, 2007 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=969495)

Reflection: I wanted to find out more information about the EU Privacy Law and the U.S. Privacy Law. I did not know exactly what each law protected individuals from but the link: http://youthandmedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_EU_Privacy_Laws, answered all of my questions. Also, when I read the abstract from the Georgetown Law Journal, if there are problems with the American privacy law then what can people actually rely on so their information is not leaked out to the public? I feel like there needs to be changes done to this law before an individual like myself can feel 100% protected.