January 2022 was a glorious month for digital rights in Europe. After the EU legislator debated and voted the Digital Services Act setting its negotiation position for the forthcoming trilogue discussions, the EU Commission shined by advancing its Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles for the Digital Decade.

Among others, one of the main preoccupations of the GDPR is to safeguard the interests and fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subjects. Understanding and being able to recognize what stands behind these concepts is paramount for any data privacy professional involved in the work of advising their companies on the path of compliance with legal requirements.

The lack of a federal constitutional right to privacy from private entities facilitates a lax consumer privacy protection landscape which shields private organizations from government actions against their arbitrary use of the data unless a state has its own data privacy law containing a more restrictive privacy regime. Up until the date there are three states which adopted comprehensive privacy regime, respectively, California, Virginia and Colorado.

The newly revised Standard Contractual Clauses ('SCCs') make significant changes to areas such as third-party beneficiary rights, calling into question the relevance of different doctrinal approaches to this area in EU Member States.