It is almost forty years since Sweden’s Data Act 1973 was the first comprehensive national data privacy law, and was the first to implement what we can now recognize as a basic set of data protection principles. How many countries now have data protection laws? This article surveys the forty years since then of global development of data privacy laws to the start of 2012. It expands and updates ‘Global data privacy laws: Accelerating after 40 years’ ((2011) Privacy Laws & Business International Report, Issue 112, 11‐17) which showed that at least 76 countries had enacted data privacy laws by mid‐2011. Six months later, further investigation shows that there are at least 89 countries with such laws. The picture that emerges is that data privacy laws are spreading globally, and their number and geographical diversity accelerating since 2000.

The article also shows that we can expect the pace of legislation to continue accelerating. There are Bills currently before legislatures in at least five countries although some have been withdrawn for redrafting. There are official draft Bills known in another five during the past year.