We are proud of lawyer Raminta Matulytė whose master thesis critically comparing EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the US data privacy regime was awarded among the best by the Lithuanian Supreme Administravimo Court.
Here are a few takeaways from the research:
📍The GDPR is the cornerstone of the EU data protection framework, which emphasizes the human rights approach and puts the data subject at the center of the EU data protection regulation model.
📍The GDPR is often considered the global “golden” standard for privacy rights protection. However, the regulation does not escape criticism for being an excessive burden, especially to small and medium enterprises, and not reflecting the needs of businesses and consumers that willingly provide their data to receive services or purchase goods.
📍The US data protection framework is considered a polar opposite of the one chosen by the EU -instead of having one comprehensive data protection legislation at a federal level, the US has adopted a number of sectoral laws that concern only the specific type of data or specific data actors.
📍The US’s fundamental approach to data protection is that companies are the ones who know better how to protect consumers’ data as they are the ones to provide them with goods and services. However, privacy activists challenge this approach by putting forward the human rights perspective. Therefore, in recent years, discussions on the adoption of broad federal privacy laws have been as active as ever, especially with the rise of the adoption of state-level data protection legislation.
📍Repeated clashes between EU and US jurisdictions concerning cross-border data transfers suggest the need to compare the EU and US data protection regulation models. While it is generally undisputed that looking from the human rights perspective, the GDPR is the standard to be achieved; this research proves a different outcome when comparing the EU and US data protection regulation models using the lens of economic analysis of law. Application of the factors of economic analysis of the law model indicated that society should generally prefer the US chosen approach, providing more economic efficiency.
Once again, we are very proud of our team member and her work which was acknowledged by the experts.
Here is a full master thesis: