Description:This work reviews the origins and history of national privacy codes as social, political and legal phenomena in the United States, Germany, France, Australia, South Korea, Hong Kong and Hungary. The book begins by examining key international statements on privacy rights, such as the OECD principles. Each national case history goes beyond the details of what current data-protection laws allow and prohibit to examine the origins of public concern about privacy; the forces promoting or opposing privacy codes; the roles of media, grassroots activists, elite intervention; and a host of other considerations shaping the present state of privacy protection in each country. The seven national case studies are chosen to include the widest variety of 'privacy stories' in an equally varied array of countries.