Strong Accountability: Beyond Vague Promises

Denis Butin (1, 2) , Marcos Chicote (1, 2) , Daniel Le Métayer (1, 2)

1 PRIVATICS - Privacy Models, Architectures and Tools for the Information Society
2 CITI - CITI Centre of Innovation in Telecommunications and Integration of services

The principle of accountability has been enjoying growing popularity over the last few years as a way to mitigate the loss of control by individuals over their personal data. It is however unclear whether accountability can be characterised precisely enough to yield effective protection and whether it bears the capacity for innovative solutions. Reasons to support accountability and criticism raised against it are discussed. Analysing accountability critically requires distinguishing between its application levels: we focus on the requirement for data controllers to provide a statement relating their actual data handling operations with their obligations, and put forward a combination of precise legal requirements and effective tools to support strong accountability. After presenting such an approach, called accountability by design, we explore the integration of this framework with legal and economic settings and discuss its complementarity with other instruments for privacy.

Mots clés: Accountability

Domaines: Droit; Sciences de l'information et de la communication; Cryptographie et sécurité [cs.CR]; Ordinateur et société [cs.CY]

Denis Butin, Marcos Chicote, Daniel Le Métayer. Strong Accountability: Beyond Vague Promises. Gutwirth, Serge and Leenes, Ronald and De Hert, Paul. Reloading Data Protection: Multidisciplinary Insights and Contemporary Challenges, Springer, pp.343-369, 2014, 978-94-007-7539-8. ⟨10.1007/978-94-007-7540-4_16⟩. ⟨hal-00917350⟩