Each year since 1997, the US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and the UK-based Privacy International have undertaken what has now become the most comprehensive survey of global privacy ever published. The Privacy & Human Rights Report surveys developments in 70 countries, assessing the state of surveillance and privacy protection.

The new 2007 global rankings extend the survey to 47 countries (from the original 37) and, for the first time, provide an opportunity to assess trends.

The intention behind this project is two-fold. First, we hope to recognize countries in which privacy protection and respect for privacy is nurtured. This is done in the hope that others can learn from their example. Second we intend to identify countries in which governments and privacy regulators have failed to create a healthy privacy environment. The aim is not to humiliate the worst ranking nations, but to demonstrate that it is possible to maintain a healthy respect for privacy within a secure and fully functional democracy.

• Are there laws protecting against use of information for secondary purposes?
• Has the government initiated plans for sharing personal information between government agencies?
• Are companies required to hand information over to government?

• Has government signed on to bad international treaties? E.g. Council of Europe Cybercrime convention, treaty of Prum, etc. (in particular, the leaders of the Prum initiative were Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands)
• Some countries because of their privacy commissioners are actually ambassadors of privacy but unfortunately this is rarely sufficient to counter-act bad government policies at the international level

• No explicit right to privacy in constitution but there are special laws for civil rights, including one for data protection; recent Supreme Court decisions are highly problematic
• Data Privacy law does not apply equally to paper files; law is considered cumbersome by experts; also sectoral laws
• Data Privacy Commission can bring civil and criminal provisions against institutions; but criticised for lack of independence
• Prohibits use of genetic data by insurance companies
• Medical data is treated as sensitive data by law
• Legal requirement permitting Austrian military to request subscriber data from telecommunications providers
• Centralisation of data on students that is stored for 60 years
• Social security card with unique numbers but little other information is stored; number of abandoned initiatives including health data cards, or 'citizen card' have been abandoned; e-identity management system is heavily criticised
• Judicial warrants for interception for serious crimes (10 years punishment or more)
• CCTV and audio surveillance is now permitted where data is stored for 48 hours; but this has not been enforced adequately
• Communications data is made available to copyright industry under Supreme Court decision
• Postponed data retention
• Matched DNA database with Germany in December 2006