The overall aim of this article is to analyse the taxpayers’ rights
to confidentiality and privacy in exchange of information including the
new global standard of automatic exchange of information. Section 2 will
analyse the state of the art regarding the right to privacy and
confidentiality in the OECD bilateral and multilateral instruments, in
the Human Right Conventions and in case law by the European Court of
Human Rights and the European Court of Justice. This section will also
analyse the application of the right to privacy and confidentiality in
practice mainly by identifying the problems of confidentiality and
privacy arising in the disclosure of information, the exchange of trade
secrets and the leak of information to the press and third parties.
Subsequently, the authors explore the possibility to introduce a
multilateral instrument to remedy these shortcomings.</p