The speaker, who was later to serve as a judge in Australia’s highest courts, was from 1978-80 Chairman of the OECD Expert Group on Transborder Data Flows and the Protection of Privacy. That body developed the OECD Guidelines for Privacy which proved influential on national laws from the Netherlands to Canada, Japan and Australia. However, he describes the problems that arose from adoption of a principle on “use limitation” following the invention of search engines. This instance shows the difficulty of maintaining the rule of law on an age of rapid technological change. Law is typically slow to adapt and change but technology races ahead. How can the rule of law be maintained and preserved in these circumstances?