History of data protection: 1986

Key developments

🇸🇪 In 1986 Swedish media reveal the existence of Projekt Metropolit, a secret sociological study of more than 15.000 individuals. Read more about it in the book ‘Born in 1953‘, listen to the podcast: ‘Projekt Metropolit‘ (in Swedish).

Also this year

Eurostat publishes the proceedings of an international seminars held in Luxembourg in 1984 about the ‘Protection of privacy, automatic data processing and progress in statistical documentation‘, to which had participated among others R. Baumann, U. Dammann, and D.H. Flaherty.
The 8^thInternational Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners takes place in Lisbon, Portugal.

Literature

Bulmer, Martin (1986), ‘A controversial census topic: Race and ethnicity in the British census‘, Journal of Official Statistics 2(4), 471-480.
Damon, Lisa J. (1986), ‘Freedom of Information versus National Sovereignty: The Need for a New Global Forum for the Resolution of Transborder Data Flow Problems’, Fordham International Law Journal 10(2), 262-287
Flaherty, David H. (1986), ‘Governmental surveillance and bureaucratic accountability: Data protection agencies in Western societies‘, Science, Technology, & Human Values 11(1), 7-18.
Flaherty, David H. (1986), ‘Protecting privacy in police information systems: data protection in the Canadian Police Information Centre‘, The University of Toronto Law Journal 36(2), 116-148.
Freese, Jan (1986), ‘The Computerization of Society‘, Israel Law Review 21(1), 48-57.
Schlink, Bernhard (1986), ‘Das Recht der Informationellen Selbstbestimmung‘, Der Staat 25(2), 233-250.

Media

‘Data protectors walk out‘, New Scientist, 6 February 1986, 25.
‘Secret Abortion Files Cause an Uproar in Sweden‘, Lon Angeles Times, 12 February 1986.