While related security, privacy and data protection are all different matters with varying degrees of protection in each jurisdiction. Code protection is a matt

While related security, privacy and data protection are all different matters with varying degrees of protection in each jurisdiction. Code protection is a matter of intellectual property law, which is only tangentially related to those areas and in fact often is opposed to privacy laws and data protection. Europe is a pretty big place. Not even all of Europe belongs to the EU, which is often cited for good privacy laws. Indeed, when it comes to laws that protect your privacy and your data against companies trying to do with your data as they please, the EU does quite ok (with minor variations from country to country). However, these laws can be excessive and overreaching at times. Often they don't quite fit the reality of how business on the internet is done but rather bureaucrats' idea of how business on the internet is done. While this generally is true for each EU country, privacy protection against the state and its agencies itself varies vastly from country to country. Germany and the Netherlands for instance do quite well in that respect. France, less so. The UK is arguably even worse than the US (thanks in part to now-PM, former Home Secretary Theresa May and because of the Five Eyes shenanigans in general). As for non-EU members both Switzerland and Iceland do exceptionally well in terms of privacy and data protection. As an added benefit, for a lack of international involvement and a high degree of independency neither of those two can be easily strong-armed by other state actors into bending laws or surrendering data.