Privacy and consumer data rights are gaining more attention across the globe as more and more consumers come to rely on the services offered in the digital economy. Consumer data rights can include fundamental rights to privacy, as well as regulations controlling the manner in which consumers consent to share their data with businesses and governments, and other regulations around how consumers can access, share and delete their data. Issues around privacy and data protection intersect in a number of policy areas including competition, consumer, privacy and data protection. There has been recent debate about the role of each of these policies in ensuring good privacy and data protection outcomes for consumers.
This roundtable was particularly timely, as a number of OECD jurisdictions had recently adopted, or were considering adopting, a range of new data rights for consumers. In many cases, the competitive impacts of these rights were largely untested and businesses were still adapting their processes in order to comply.
In June 2020, the OECD addressed three primary questions:
- How do businesses use consumer data and are there market failures with respect to consumer data?
- What is the role of competition law enforcement?
- What is the role of competition advocacy?
