It is impossible to summarise data protection in two or three lines. Data protection is a catch-all term for a series of ideas with regard to the processing of personal data (see below). By applying these ideas, governments try to reconcile fundamental but conflicting values such as privacy, free flow of information, the need for government surveillance, applying taxes, etc. In general, data protection does not have a prohibitive nature like criminal law. Data subjects do not own their data. In many cases, they cannot prevent the processing of their data.