27 - Landscape with the Rise of Data Privacy Protection

Summary

INTRODUCTION

It's true that not a day passes without new pieces of paper entering the Registry, papers referring to individuals of the male sex and of the female sex who continue to be born in the outside world ….

Jos é Saramago, All the Names (1997)

… a splash quite unnoticed this was Icarus drowning William C Williams,

‘Landscape with the fall of Icarus’ (1962)

Perhaps the most common interpretation of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's painting Landscape with the fall of Icarus highlights popular ignorance of and indifference to the drowning of Icarus In Greek mythology, Daedalus and his son Icarus attempted to fly with the aid of wings they had made of both feathers and wax Icarus recklessly flew too close to the sun, his wings melted and he drowned in the sea In Bruegel's painting, Icarus has already fallen, but he and his sad fate are hardly noticed He disappears in the richness of the landscape shown, the crew of a ship sailing by has not reacted to his fall and – as Bruegel's contemporary fellows would have said – the farmer goes on ploughing.

Despite both the authenticity of the painting and its dominant interpretation being questioned, we have found this masterpiece of Bruegel a suitable allegory for our concluding idea for this book The underlying observation that stands out from our reading of the foregoing 26 chapters to this volume is that of the entanglement of data privacy in the entirety of trans-Atlantic relations Yet we have observed that in these relations the protection of data privacy – to a large extent – recklessly falls victim of ignorance and indifference, similarly to the fate of Icarus as painted by Bruegel.

We have explained in our Preface that our main impetus for this book had been the Snowden affaire We have aimed with this book to explore the status quo of trans-Atlantic data privacy relations challenging the notions of democracy, the rule of law (Rechtsstaat) and fundamental rights.