Towards effective, consent based control of personal data

The principle of consent is widely seen as a key mechanism for enabling user-centric data management. Informed consent has its origins in the context of medical research but the principle has been extended to cover the lawful processing of personal data. In particular, the proposed EU regulation on data protection seeks to strengthen the consent requirements moving them from unambiguous to explicit. Nevertheless, there are a number of limitations to the way that even explicit consent operates in real-life situations which suggest that an alternative, more dynamic form of consent is needed. This chapter reviews the key concerns with static forms of consent for the control of personal data and proposes a technologically mediated form of dynamic consent instead.