Can UK (or even any EU states) avoid or even stop the onslaught of globalisation and the unintended consequences such as immigration?
I guess one true barometer is time. Like the financial markets (sentiment indicators of the REMAIN voters?), I too reacted negatively (though not making any financial gains from the event!). I can only reflect on the past – the past that brought me to the UK, and more touchingly what brought my grandparents and my parents (immigrants from mainland China to Malaysia) to leave their homeland. I hope my kids (birthplace in England and Scotland) will not have to repeat what their ancestors were forced to do. It certainly wasn’t globalisation that drove my ancestors to seek a new life outside their homeland. Perhaps one day I will dig deeper into humanity in the face of atrocities.

Reflecting on data privacy – a subject that touches on humanity (& touches me) – the Schrems case (2015) as recorded in curia.europa.eu – The Court of Justice declares that the Commission’s US Safe Harbour Decision is invalid - and elsewhere is certainly worth re-visiting in light of Brexit.

How about examining the Schrems case – substituting US for UK and any other variables you can imagine? Any takers from the UK legal scholars and practitioners?

Many thanks to Dr David Haynes and Dr Lyn Robinson for posting the blog.

http://www.city.ac.uk/news/2016/jan/data-privacy-day-discussion

Headlines and content extracted and posted here;

City experts to discuss data privacy

The European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the recent European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judgement are among several issues to be addressed by data privacy researchers.
The latest European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the recent European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judgement are among several issues which will be discussed by City University London researchers on Data Privacy Day, 28th January 2016. The event will take place in Room AG07a from Noon to 1pm.

The wording of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was agreed in December 2015.

The new Regulation began life as a draft document in 2012 and after being debated in the European Parliament and a trilogue between the three EU institutions (the European Council, the European Commission and the European Parliament) the final wording has been agreed. The GDPR will take effect from 2018 and strengthens the protection offered to individuals within the EU.

Among its new provisions are:

1. Better control of personal data by individuals.

2. Better access by individuals to their own data.

3. Data portability.

4. The right to be forgotten.

5. The right to know about serious data breaches.

Following active lobbying the new Regulation also aims to be more business-friendly by cutting out the red tape. SMEs that handle personal data (such as employee records) will no longer be required to register with the data protection authorities, so long as processing personal data is not their main business. Unlike the current Data Protection Directive, the new Regulation will automatically apply across all EU states – it does not have to be passed into national law, such as the UK’s Data Protection Act 1998. Businesses working across Europe will only have to deal with one authority, rather than the regulatory body in each state that it operates in.

A recent judgement by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has highlighted some of these issues by ruling that employers are entitled to monitor employee communications when they are using the Internet during work hours. A Romanian worker sacked in 2007 for use of personal e-mail during work hours had appealed against a ruling by the Romanian courts that upheld his dismissal.

However the ECHR upheld a ruling by the Romanian Court, stating that it was not ‘unreasonable that an employer would want to verify that employees were completing their professional tasks during working hours’. This raises important issues for employees throughout the EU.

Definition Data Privacy Day
Data Privacy Day began in the United States and Canada in January 2008 as an extension of the Data Protection Day celebration in Europe. Data Protection Day commemorates the 28th January 1981, signing of Convention 108, the first legally binding international treaty dealing with privacy and data protection. Data Privacy Day is now a celebration for everyone, observed annually on 28th January.

Hope to get this celebration to be an annual event at City University London.
I’ll be doing a 5 mins talk on my current research.