This annual report by EPIC and Privacy International provides an overview of key privacy topics and reviews the state of privacy in over 60 countries around the world.  The report outlines legal protections, new challenges, and important issues and events relating to privacy.  Privacy & Human Rights 2004 is the most comprehensive report on privacy and data protection ever published.

The Privacy & Human Rights 2004 report documents the continued expansion of government surveillance authority. Many countries have pursued new identification schemes, expanded monitoring of communications, weakened data protection laws, and intensified data transfers between public and private sectors.

The report also finds continuing public opposition to traveler profiling systems, secret video surveillance, smart cards, DNA and health information databases, and radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies. New topics for 2004 include travel privacy, electronic voting, census, nanotechnologies, and the World Summit on the Information Society. The 2004 survey notes the adoption of new data protection and open government laws, and includes new country reports for Latin America, Africa and Asia.