Until now, advancements in information and communication technologies have largely been perceived as threats to privacy and have often led policymakers to seek, and citizens and consumers to demand, additional privacy safeguards in the legal and regulatory arenas. But over the decades, the adoption of new technologies across varying socio-economic contexts has periodically culminated in critical inflection points that offered individuals and society opportunities to re-examine and advance the notion of privacy itself. The chapter argues that it is time for such a shift.

This chapter is interested in one specific cross-cutting dimension of what might be labelled as the 'rethinking privacy' discourse. It asks whether and how the interplay between technology and privacy law – both systems that govern information flows – can be reimagined and organized in mutually productive ways.

The chapter proceeds in four steps: (1) explaining some of the dynamics that motivate a rethinking of privacy in the modern moment; (2) developing a historical understanding of the dominant patterns connecting the evolutions of law and technology; (3) examining a potential way to reimagine the dynamic between these elements moving forward; and (4) sketching elements of a pathway towards ‘re-coding’ privacy law.