Little Brother Is Tagging You – Legal and Policy Implications of Amateur Data Controllers

This article argues that the instances in which amateur users will fall under the ambit of data protection law are not the exception, but rather the rule. Based on an analysis of the provisions of the European Data Protection Directive, the article demonstrates that existing data protection law burdens amateur users with provisions that exceed the personal, technical and financial capacities of most Social Network Sites (SNS) users, that do no fit the SNS context or that users are simply not able to comply with without assistance from the SNS provider. While it is unacceptable to burden amateurs with a number of obligations that exceed their capacities, it is also not feasible to place all the burdens on SNS providers, since many of the privacy problems of SNSs are in fact user-made. All this points to a concept of joint-responsibility of SNS users and providers. The article concludes with a number of concrete suggestions on how such a concept of joint responsibility could be given form.