Towards a European Convention on Data Protection
Abstract The widespread transborder flow of computerised personal data has created an urgent necessity for international arrangements protecting the right to privacy. The Council of Europe is now preparing a draft Convention on Data Protection, the basic principles of which will be the free flow of information among the Contracting States and the protection of the privacy of the subjects of such information. Its provisions would, among other things, designate the applicable law in cases of transfrontier data flow and would specify that all remaining conflicts between laws be resolved in favour of the data subject. Because such an agreement requires a great deal of mutual assistance among the Contracting States, the Council of Europe, as a group of like-minded States, is perhaps the best level at which to begin international co-operation in data protection.