5 - Traditionalist Data Protection Rules

Summary

Chapter 5 examines traditional data protection law’s regulatory outcomes. It shows why data rights and rules, while desirable, don’t address the core problems of the contracts model and can’t work well without the liability model. Data rights unintendedly impose administrative burdens on those they protect. Mandatory rules better address power asymmetries and manipulation than defaults. But our procedural rules overregulate while they underprotect: they benefit large players by adversely affecting new players and they allow companies to comply merely by following box-ticking exercises. Against this backdrop, laws legitimize exploitation that can be executed while remaining compliant. A risk-reduction approach based on standards would reduce informational exploitation.