Gloria González Fuster

Key developments

• 🇪🇺 The European Parliament adopts Resolution of 8 May 1979 on the protection of the rights of the individual in the face of technical developments in data processing (OJ C140, 5.6.1979, 34-38). The Resolution features Recommendations including references to the establishment of a ‘data control body of the European Community’, and calls for the protection of data of groups of individuals. The Secretary General of the European Parliament sends it in a letter to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, on 29 May 1979.
• 🇱🇺 Luxembourg adopts its first data protection law, the ‘Nominal Data (Automatic Processing) Act of 31 March 1979’ (Loi du 31 mars 1979 réglementant l’utilisation des données nominatives dans les traitements informatiques).
• The 1^st International Conference on Data Protection takes place in Bonn (Germany).

Also this year

• 🇪🇺 Also happening at the European Parliament:
  • Written question No 1166/79 by Ms Clwyd to the Commission of the European Communities on ‘Indiscriminate searches of data banks‘, 26 November 1979.
  • Written question No 1351/79 by Mr Forth to the Commission of the European Communities on ‘Access to and security of computer-processed data in the EEC‘, 14 December 1979.

• 🇪🇺 At the European Commission:
  • Communication European Society and the Data Technologies: Towards a Community Response. Communication for European Council session, Dublin, 29/30 November 1979, COM (79) 683 final, 22 November 1979.
  • Communication European society faced with the challenge of new information technologies: a Community response, COM(79) 650 final, 26 November 1979 (cf. p. 22, stressing the need to make certain ‘that all the Member States are prepared to accede to the Convention [108] in the near future. If this is not the case, the alternative of a Community directive will have to be considered’; the Communication contains also a call for studies on ‘the need for further legislation’, and a reference to ‘the need protect the Community citizen’s fundamental rights’, including through ‘an effective harmonization of the laws of the Member States’ (p.23)).
  • The European public’s attitudes to scientific and technical development. Opinion poll in the countries of the European Community, Commission XII/201/79-EN, February 1979 (cf. Computerization of administration, item 146).

• A draft Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, on the Protection of Privacy Against Use of Computers and Data Banks, is proposed by the International Union of Lawyers.
• 🇧🇪 On 25 et 26 September takes places in Namur (Belgium) the Conference ‘Banque de données – Entreprises – Vie privée‘, discussing databases, privacy, data transfers & much more.
• 🇦🇺 In Australia: Australian Law Reform, Privacy and the Census, Report No. 12, Canberra, 1979.
• 🇦🇹 The Second Conference on Human Choice and Computers (HCC2) is held in Baden, Austria (June 4-8, 1979). The proceedings were published by North Holland Press in 1980, edited by A. Mowshowitz.
• 🇫🇷 In Paris takes place a ‘Colloque international Informatique et société (24-28 September 1979); read the speech of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.

Literature

• Bigelow, Robert (1979), ‘Transborder data flow barriers‘, Jurimetrics, 20(1), Fall, 8-17.
• Bulmer, Martin (1979, Censuses, surveys, and privacy, The MacMillan Press.
• Casey, Kathleen (1979), International barriers to data flows: Background report, Washington, US Gov. Print Off..
• Dalenius, Tore (1979), ‘Data protection legislation in Sweden: A statistician’s perspective’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A: Statistics in Society 142.3, 285-298.
• de Sola Pool, Ithiel, and Richard J. Solomon (1979), ‘The regulation of transborder data flows’, Telecommunications Policy 3(3), 176-191.
• Durbin, J. (1979), ‘Statistics and the report of the Data Protection Committee‘, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (General), 299-306.
• Flaherty, David H. (1979), Privacy and Government Data Banks: An International Perspective, Mansell.

• Freese, Jan (1979), International Data Flow, Studentlitteratur.
• Gallwas, Hans-Ullrich (1979), ‘Verfassungsrechtliche Grundlagen des Datenschutzes‘, Der Staat 18(4), 507–520.
• ‘GMSC: Support For Data Protection Authority‘ (1979), The British Medical Journal 1(6172), 1228–1229.
• Halls, Craig C. (1979), ‘Raiding the Databanks: A Developing Problem for Technologists and Lawyers’, Journal of Contemporary Law 5(2 ), 245-266.
• Kirby, Michael Donald (1979), ‘Data protection and law reform‘, Computer Networks (1976), 149-163.
• Koltun, Philip (1979), ‘Computers and the law: A course description‘, Jurimetrics 20(1), 85–101.
• Linowes, David F. (1979), ‘Must Personal Privacy Die in the Computer Age?’, A.B.A. J. 65, 1180-1184.
• Marchand, Donald A. (1979), ‘Privacy, confidentiality and computers: National and international implications of US information policy’, Telecommunications Policy, 3(3), 192-208.
• Matthews, Clyde (1979), ‘Stopping Computer Chomping Of Privacy’, The New York Times, 28 April 1979.
• Mochmann, Ekkehard and Paul J. Müller (1979), ‘Data protection and access to social-science data‘, International social science journal, XXXI, 1, 162-165 (featuring in the appendix ‘The Bellagio Principles’).
• Nisenoff, Norman, Ethelyn Bishop and Audrey Clayton (1979), ‘The privacy of computerized records—The Swedish experience and possible U.S. policy impacts‘, Information Processing & Management 1,(4), 205-211.
• Parsons, Carole (1979), “Computers and the international flow of information“, Computer Networks 3(3) (1979), 171-173.
• Pérez Luño, Antonio-Enrique (1979), ‘La protección de la intimidad frente a la informática en la Constitución Española de 1978‘, Revista de estudios políticos, 9, 59-72.
• Posner, Richard A. (1979), ‘Privacy, Secrecy, and Reputation’, Buff. L. Rev. 28.
• ‘Respect de la vie privée et accès des chercheurs aux données individuelles‘ (1979), Economie et statistique, n°108, Février, 65-69.
• Special issue of Computer Networks, feat.:
  • Golsong, Heribert (1979), ‘Towards a European convention on data protection‘, Computer Networks 3(3), 215-218.
  • Hondius, Frits and Paul Sieghart (1979), ‘Editorial‘, Computer Networks 3(3), 147-148.
  • Maisl, Herbert (1979), ‘Legal aspects of data flows between public agencies in France‘, Computer Networks 3(3), 199-204.
  • Rooms, Peter LP, and John Dexter (1979), ‘Problems of data protection law for private multinational communication networks‘, Computer Networks 3(3), 205-214.
  • Stadlen, Godfrey (1979), ‘Survey of national data protection legislation‘, Computer Networks 3(3), 174-186.
  • Steinmüller, Wilhelm (1979), ‘Legal problems of computer networks: A methodological survey‘, Computer Networks 3(3), 187-198.
• Streil, Jochen, ‘S. Simitis, O. Dammann, O. Mallmann, H.J. Reh, Kommentar zum Bundesdaten schutzgesetz‘, Revue internationale de droit comparé. Vol. 31 N°1, Janvier-mars, 252-254.

To watch

• Debate at Université Paris 8 on ‘Le nouveau contrôle social‘, bringing together the then Director of the CNIL, Louis Joinet, and Michel Foucault, among others.

• The French President Giscard d’Estaing gives a speech at an event on “computers and society on 28 September 1979. A commentator states it is good to have event to think about these issues, but that it would be better to start acting before it is too late; watch at the INA Youtube channel.

In the media

• ‘Europeans see wider concern’ in restrictions of transborder data flow: Protect people against Computers & computers against people‘, AFIPS Washington Report, February 1979 V(2), 78-81.
• Joinet, Louis, ‘Les «pièges liberticides» de l’informatique’, Le Monde Dipolomatique, March 1979, 8.
• Matthews, Clyde, ‘Stopping Computer Chomping Of Privacy‘, The New York Times, 28 April 1979.
• ‘»Das Stahlnetz stülpt sich über uns«‘, Der Spiegel, 21/1979, 20 May 1979.
• Eger, John M., ‘Dams in the Data Stream‘, The New York Times, 21 August 1979.
• ‘Wandelnde Steckbriefe‘, Der Spiegel, 42/1979, 14 October 1979.

Music

• 🎵 Delta 5, ‎’Mind your own Business’ (7″, 1979), featuring the lyrics ‘Can I have a taste of your ice cream? Can I lick the crumbs from your table? Can I interfere in your crisis? No, mind your own business!’.
• 🎵 This Heat ‘Twilight furniture’ (from This Heat, Piano, 1979).

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