Key developments
- ⚖️ The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rules in ‘Schrems‘ (Case C‑362/14) on 6 October 2015, declaring invalid the decision according to which the ‘Safe Harbour Agreement’ provided adequate protection for 🇪🇺 🇺🇸 data flows. Read the written observations of the applicant.

- A EU-wide survey on data protection conducted in March 2015 (Special Eurobarometer 431) illustrates among other issues that the over six out of ten people had never heard about the existence of data protection authorities.
Also this year
- ⚖️ The CJEU also rules in Y.S. and Others (C-141/12), on 17 July 2015; Bara and Others (C-201/14) and Weltimmo (C‑230/14) (both 1 October 2015).
- ⚖️ The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) decides Dragojević v Croatia, on 15 January 2015, and in Roman Zakharov v Russia, on 4 December 2015.
- The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers adopts Recommendation CM/Rec(2015)5 on the processing of personal data in the context of employment.
- 🇺🇳 The Human Rights Council creates the first mandate on privacy in resolution 28/16, deciding to appoint a Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy.
- The European Commission publishes the Communication A Digital Single Market Strategy for Europe, COM(2015) 192 final, 6.5.2015.
- The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) adopts its Strategy 2015-2019: Leading By Example.
Literature
- Browne, Simone (2015), Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, Duke University Press.
- Brückweh, Kerstin (2015), Menschen zählen: Wissensproduktion durch britische Volkszählungen und Umfragen vom 19. Jahrhundert bis ins digitale Zeitalter, German Historical Institute London, De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
- Frohman, Larry (2015), ‘Population registration, social planning, and the discourse on privacy protection in West Germany‘, The Journal of Modern History 87.2, 316-356.
- Garrow, David J. (2015), Liberty and sexuality: The right to privacy and the making of Roe v. Wade, University of California Press.
- Goffman, Alice (2015), On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City, Picador.
- González, Marc-Tizoc (2015), ‘Habeas Data: Comparative Constitutional Interventions from Latin America against Neoliberal States of Insecurity and Surveillance‘, Chicago-Kent Law Review 90(2), 641-670.
- Lundin, Per (2015), ‘Computers and Welfare: The Swedish Debate on the Politics of Computerization in the 1970s and the 1980s‘, History of Nordic Computing 4: 4th IFIP WG 9.7 Conference, HiNC 4, Copenhagen, Denmark, August 13-15, 2014, Revised Selected Papers 4. Springer.
- Lynskey, Orla (2015), The Foundations of EU Data Protection Law, Oxford University Press.
- Halpérin, Jean-Louis (2015), ‘Protection de la vie privée et privacy : deux traditions juridiques différentes?’, Les Nouveaux Cahiers du Conseil constitutionnel, 48(3), 59-68.
- Peguera, Miquel (2015), ‘In the Aftermath of Google Spain: How the Right to Be Forgotten Is Being Shaped in Spain by Courts and the Data Protection Authority’, International Journal of Law and Information Technology 23(4), 325-347.
- Rallo Lombarte, Artemi and Rosario García Mahamut (eds.) (2015), Hacia un nuevo derecho europeo de protección de datos, Tirant Lo Blanch.
- Rodotà, Stefano (2015), Il diritto di avere diritti, Gius. Laterza & Figli.
Films

- 🎬 Democracy – Im Rausch der Daten (2015), documentary by David Bernet. Read: ‘Democracy: the film that gets behind the scenes of the European privacy debate‘ (Julia Powles, The Guardian, 14 November 2015).
Media
- The New York Times Editorial Board (2015), ‘Europe’s Expanding ‘Right to Be Forgotten’’, The New York Times, 4 February 2015.
- Powles, Julia, ‘Tech companies like Facebook not above the law, says Max Schrems‘, The Guardian, 9 October 2015.
Music
- 🎵 Holly Herndon ’Home‘ (from Platform, 4AD, 2015).
In memoriam

- Casper Bowden (19 August 1961 – 9 July 2015), British privacy advocate who notably warned for years about the scale of global mass surveillance by the US. Watch his talk ‘Caspar Bowden: The Cloud Conspiracy 2008-2014‘. Read: ‘Caspar Bowden obituary‘, by Ross Anderson, in The Guardian.