Module 2 clip 5

Training participants read the text below and answer the following questions:

• Do legal and cultural traditions impact privacy?
• What cultural factors in your jurisdiction or region might impact the types of provisions or approach to a successful privacy framework?

There are significant cultural variations that cannot be overlooked when comparing different data privacy legislation. For instance, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights identifies data protection as a human right. In contrast, the United States has historically embraced a hands-off approach that promotes enterprises that collect and utilize personal data. The usage of personal information for commercial interests outweighs the value of data privacy. As data breaches continue to wreak havoc, the thinking has shifted considerably in recent years toward better safeguarding individuals, but the underlying cultural disparities will take more time to dissolve and bring the US into complete harmony with the EU's mindset and legislation. This can be further contrasted by jurisdictions such as the People’s Republic of China (PRC), where data is considered a resource central to national security and legislation regarding the regulation is focused more on reducing harm to the state, Chinese Communist Party  and society rather than protecting privacy.  As already mentioned in Module 1, in other countries, especially in Asia, some languages lack terminology for the idea of privacy. For instance, what in certain countries would be referred to as "privacy" is so unfamiliar to the Chinese culture that views against it are ingrained in the language. For instance, the literal translation of "self-centered" into Chinese is "self-private (自私)", and the literal translation of "to smuggle" is "to walk privately (走私)".