Data protection law: The Cinderella of the software industry?

There is an emerging field of interdisciplinary research that is investigating the relationship between software (“code”) and law. This article builds on that research and attempts to show that the coding of law into applications is haphazard. Some laws receive significant attention from software makers and others do not. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act has received considerable attention, yet data privacy laws remain largely ignored. The article will explore why this happens and begin to postulate some solutions.