Gloria González Fuster

Key developments

• 🇩🇪 Germany adopts its first Federal data protection law, the 1977 Bundesdatenschutzgesetz (BDSG).

• 🇺🇸 In the United States, the report of the Privacy Commission Study Personal Privacy in an Information Society is transmitted to President Jimmy Carter on July 12, 1977. It was prepared in response to a Congressional mandate to study data banks, automatic data processing programs, and information systems of governmental, regional and private organisations to determine standards and procedures in force for the protection of personal information.

Also this year

• 🇪🇺 On 5 April 1977, the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission adopt a Joint Declaration stressing ‘the prime importance they attach to the protection of fundamental rights, as derived in particular from the constitutions of the Member States and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms’.
• 🇪🇺 At the European Parliament: Cousté, P. B., Report drawn up on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the proposals from the Commission of the European Communities to the Council (doc. 433/76) for a four-year programme for the development of informatics in the Community. EP Working Documents 1977-78, Document 235/77, 31 August 1977.
• 🇪🇺 On 15 September 1977 the Legal Service of the Commission of the European Communities, as requested by the Parliament Secretariat, publishes ‘a written opinion as to legal instruments which, in view of the state of technical progress in data processing and the dangers stemming therefrom, could afford protection at Community level against infringements of the rights of the individual‘ (SEC(77) 3176).
• 🇪🇺 On 27 September 1977 the Council of Ministers of the Commission of the European Communities decides (in Decision number 77/616/EEC) to initiate a study on data security and confidentiality, the main object of which was ‘to examine, in conjunction with the Committee of National Experts convened by the Commission, the chief problems relating to the harmonization of Community legislation covering the protection of private life and the development of codes of application and corresponding standards’ (source: Chamoux and Grissonnanche, 1980).

• The OECD’s Working Party on Information, Computers and Communications Policy’s Data Bank Panel organises a ‘Symposium on Transborder Data Flows and the Protection of Privacy’, Hofburg, Vienna, 20-23 September 1977. The proceedings were published in 1979, and feature in the list of participants, among many others: Joinet (France), Frosini, Rodotà (Italy), Hustinx (Netherlands), Anér, Freese, Svenonius (Sweden), Sieghart (United Kingdom), Westin (United States), Hondius (Council of Europe), Steinmüller (IFIP), Gassmann, Pipe (OECD).

• 🇫🇷 The French Assemblée Nationale discusses the proposal for a law on ‘computers and freedom’. Read here the proceedings of the debate of 4 October 1977.

Literature

• Blekeli, Ragnar Dag and Knut S. Selmer (eds.), Data og personvern, Univ., -forl., Oslo.
• Dammann, Ulrich (1977), Die Kontrolle des Datenschutzes: eine Untersuchung zur institutionellen Kontrolle des Datenschutzes im öffentlichen Bereich, Metzner.
• Ellul, Jacques (1977), Le Système technicien, Calmann-Lévy.
• Firnberg, D. (1977), ‘Protecting privacy in the computer age‘, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 125, No. 5252, July 1977, 431-443.
• Frayssinet, Jean (1977), ‘L’informatique et le secret des fichiers‘, La Revue Administrative, 176, 175-185.
• Freese, Jan (1977), ‘The Swedish Data Act‘, Current Sweden, 178, November 1977.
• Kimbel, Dieter (1977), ‘Policy research for information activities: The OECD programme on information, computers and communications policy‘, Telecommunications Policy, 1(5), 367-373.
• Kirby, MD (1977), ‘Data bases and Privacy – Or how to stop talking and do something‘, Computers and the Law , Monash University, May 1977.
• Kirchberg, Alfred-Theodor (1977), ‘Personenkennzeichen—Ende der Privatsphäre?‘, Zeitschrift für Rechtspolitik, 137-139.
• Martin, Margaret E. (1977), ‘Statisticians, confidentiality, and privacy‘, American journal of public health 67(2), 165-167.
• NSW Privacy Committee (1977), Guidelines for the Operation of Personal Data Systems.
• Pettiti, Louis E. (1977), ‘Les protections juridiques et législatives dans le domaine de la protection de la vie privée et du contrôle des banques de données‘, Rivista Internazionale Informatica e Diritto, fasc. 1, 92-104.
• Posner, Richard A. (1977), ‘The right of privacy’, Ga. L. Rev. 12, 393.
• The Privacy Protection Study Commission (1977), Personal Privacy in an Information Society (pdf here).
• Royal Statistical Society (1977), ‘Evidence from the Royal Statistical Society to the Data Protection Committee‘, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, ,Series A 140(2), pp. 210-216.
• Seipel, Peter (1977), Computing law: Perspectives on a new legal discipline, LiberFörlag Stockholm.
• Sieghart, Paul (1977), “Computers, Information, Privacy and the Law”, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 125(5252), 456–472.
• Tapper, Colin (1977), ‘Reports of Committees: Computers and Privacy‘, The Modern Law Review, 198-200.

In the media

• Schmeck Jr., Harold M., ‘Medical Records Privacy Violated, Government‐Backed Study Finds‘, The New York Times, 13 January 1977.
• ‘Duitsers worden beschermd gegen misbruik van computers‘, Leidse Courant, 18 February 1977, 15.
• ‘Wet of ‘1984’ -sfeer‘, Her Parool, 21 February 1977, 5.

• Thornton, Scott, ‘Defensa contra la agresión de las computadoras‘, Diario de Burgos : De avisos y noticias, Año LXXXVII, 56544, 24 March 1977, 3.
• Lynch, James F., ‘Privacy Bill May End Junk Mail‘, The New York Times, 27 March 1977.

• ‘France is Ready to Clamp Down on Computer Abuses of Privacy’, Datamation, April 1977, 162-163.
• Pantages, Angeline, and G. Russell Pipe (1977), ‘A New Headache For International DP‘, Datamation, June 1977, 115-126.
• ‘Hessians Privacy Abused Despite Law‘, Computerworld, 20 July 1977, 13.
• ‘A new look at privacy in Australia‘, Press, 28 July 1977, 25.
• ‘Symposium on privacy‘, Press, 5 August 1977, 18
• ‘Computer safeguards‘, Press, 25 August 1977, 4.
• Westin, Alan F. and Roger Baldwin, ‘J. Edgar‘, The New York Times, 26 August 1977.
• ‘Commission to Study Privacy Abuses to be Named‘, The New York Times, 25 September 1977.

• ‘Amerika’s informatie overmacht: Gevaarlijk speel zonder grenzen‘, NRC Handelsblad, Rotterdam, 1 October 1977.
• ‘Legislating for privacy’, Press, 28 October 1977, 4.
• ‘False data to be legal‘, Press, 9 November 1977, 5.
• ‘Professor Spiros Simitis‘, Der Spiegel, 13 November 1977.

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