European Privacy and Human Rights (EPHR)

Privacy International, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Center for Media and Communications Studies (CMCS) conducted their joint project on European Privacy and Human Rights (EPHR) between March 2010 and June 2011.

The EPHR project comprised three action areas:

1. Map European privacy laws and recent developments as well as summarise the trends in the light of the right to privacy;

2. Disseminate information and publish it on multiple online and offline platforms; and

3. Develop innovative awareness-raising campaigns to be launched at the European Data Protection Day on 28th January 2011.

The EPHR project built upon the EPIC publication Privacy & Human Rights: An International Survey of Privacy Laws and Developments, which is the most authoritative reference on privacy regulations and developments worldwide. The following activities were the continuation of EPIC's successful work.

The Center set up a European hub to coordinate input and updates, created a reliable network of country contributors, and maintained or improved the quality of analysis of each EU country report from all 27 EU Member States, the EU itself, the ECTA countries, and EU accession candidate countries. Privacy International relied on the country information as background for its privacy ranking for all EU countries. Finally, the EPHR survey was illustrated by overview charts and maps covering all countries included in the survey.

As a result of the EPHR project, accurate and high quality information about the state of European privacy legal framework and recent developments was provided in English and in the language of each EU member state for its respective country report. A summary wrapped up the country reports and presented policy analysis and recommendations. On the part of the CMCS, the project team was coordinated by Professor Kristina Irion, Department of Public Policy at Central European University.

The European Commissions Special Programme "Fundamental Rights and Citizenship" funded this project.