In the context of the continuous advance of information technologies and biomedicine, and of the creation of economic blocs, this thesis is devoted to the analysis of the role data protection plays in the integration of markets, with a special emphasis on financial and insurance services. Moreover, it is also concerned with the identification of differences in the data protection systems of EU member states and with the development of common standards and principles of data protection that could help to build a data protection model for Mercosur, keeping in mind the need to establish a high level of data protection without creating unnecessary constraints for the flow of information. The thesis is divided into four parts. The first one deals with the evolution of the right to privacy, focusing on the last few decades, taking into account the development of new technologies. In this part an analysis of the European framework of data protection and of its standards developed is carried out. Then, in the second part, the interaction between data protection and the industries selected as case studies, namely insurance, bank and credit reporting, is discussed. This discussion concentrates on specific issues, such as generalisation and discrimination, adverse selection and the processing of sensitive and genetic data. The focus of the third part is the analysis of the legislation of three EU member states (France, Italy and UK). In order to perform this comparative exercise, some important issues are taken into account: the concepts of personal and anonymous data, data protection principles, the role of the data protection authorities, the role of the data protection officer, data subjects’ rights, the processing of sensitive data, the processing of genetic data and the experience of the case studies in processing data. Moreover, issues related to the specific member states are also considered. Subsequently to the comparative analysis, some recommendations are proposed for updating EU legislation on data protection, so as to reduce the barriers to the establishment of an internal market, mainly for financial and insurance services. Finally, the proposal of a model for data protection that could be adopted by Mercosur, taking into account the different levels of data protection that exist in its member states, is conducted in the last part. The thesis concludes by emphasising the important role data protection can play in the process of markets’ integration.