Law & Society Blog

Privacy International published an interesting survey of the degree of informational privacy afforded by various countries to its citizens and the pervasiveness of electronic surveillance. Here are the key findings:

• The two worst ranking countries in the survey are Malaysia and China. The highest-ranking countries are Germany and Canada.
• In terms of statutory protections and privacy enforcement, the US is the worst ranking country in the democratic world. In terms of the health of national privacy protection, the US has been ranked between Thailand and Israel.
• The worst ranking EU country is the United Kingdom, which fell into the “black” category along with Russia and Singapore. The black category defines countries demonstrating “endemic surveillance”.
• Despite having no comprehensive national privacy law, the United States scored higher than the UK. Thailand and the Philippines also scored higher than the UK.
• Argentina scored higher than 20 of the 25 EU countries.
• Australia ranks higher than Slovenia but lower than Lithuania and Argentina. New Zealand ranks higher than Australia and has an equivalent ranking to the Czech Republic.

Here is the ratings table and a map based on the chart. If I was managing an email service provider in Germany, such as GMX, I would start marketing the comparative advantage in terms of privacy protection to US customers. (Hushmail, a great Canadian service, is already doing it.)

Technorati Tags: privacy, hush, gmx, surveillance

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