In recent years, data protection, i.e., the legal regulation of the collection, storage,
transmission and use of information concerning identified or identifiable individuals,
has become a major concern in most countries, as well as at the supranational and
international levels.
In fact, the emergence of computing technologies that allow, at ever lower costs,
the processing of increasing amounts of information, associated with the advent and
exponential use of the Internet and other communication networks and the widespread
liberalization of the trans-border flow of information, have allowed the largescale
collection and treatment of individual data, not only for scientific or commercial,
but also for political uses.
A growing number of governmental and private organizations now possess and
currently use data processing in order to determine, predict and influence individual
behavior in all fields of human activity.