Off-line digital jurisdiction

Abstract

The paper examines the issue of the jurisdiction over personal data from a particular angle: it aims to investigate the conditions under which European law might be competitive with other legal systems by strengthening the protection of fundamental rights such as data protection and privacy within transborder relations and, in particular, by widening the scope of European courts’ jurisdiction in such cases. The aim of the paper is to show the clash between the un-physical nature of information as commodity and the physical notion of state borders, upon which the notion of jurisdiction is based. Such endeavor explores the use of extraterritoriality of data protection and privacy in international law, with the purpose of finding broader solutions inspired to functional criteria other than the territorial connection.