Data Protection Law:Approaching Its Rationale, Logic and Limits


Book Description

The author evaluates the costs and/or gains and the interference (positive or negative) in the commercial, public administrative and social spheres that data protection laws have the potential to create, with numerous references to legislation and administrative decision making in a wide variety of jurisdictions.




Research Handbook on EU Data Protection Law


Book Description

Bringing together leading European scholars, this thought-provoking Research Handbook provides a state-of-the-art overview of the scope of research and current thinking in the area of European data protection. Offering critical insights on prominent strands of research, it examines key challenges and potential solutions in the field. Chapters explore the fundamental right to personal data protection, government-to-business data sharing, data protection as performance-based regulation, privacy and marketing in data-driven business models, data protection and judicial automation, and the role of consent in an algorithmic society.




Reinventing Data Protection?


Book Description

data. Furthermore, the European Union established clear basic principles for the collection, storage and use of personal data by governments, businesses and other organizations or individuals in Directive 95/46/EC and Directive 2002/58/EC on Privacy and Electronic communications. Nonetheless, the twenty-?rst century citizen – utilizing the full potential of what ICT-technology has to offer – seems to develop a digital persona that becomes increasingly part of his individual social identity. From this perspective, control over personal information is control over an aspect of the identity one projects in the world. The right to privacy is the freedom from unreasonable constraints on one’s own identity. Transactiondata–bothtraf?candlocationdata–deserveourparticularattention. As we make phone calls, send e-mails or SMS messages, data trails are generated within public networks that we use for these communications. While traf?c data are necessary for the provision of communication services, they are also very sensitive data. They can give a complete picture of a person’s contacts, habits, interests, act- ities and whereabouts. Location data, especially if very precise, can be used for the provision of services such as route guidance, location of stolen or missing property, tourist information, etc. In case of emergency, they can be helpful in dispatching assistance and rescue teams to the location of a person in distress. However, p- cessing location data in mobile communication networks also creates the possibility of permanent surveillance.




Data Privacy Law


Book Description

This is the first work to examine the fundamental aims and principles of data privacy law in an international context. Bygrave analyses relevant law from across the globe, paying particular attention to international instruments and using these as a foundation for examining national law.




The Foundations of EU Data Protection Law


Book Description

Nearly two decades after the EU first enacted data protection rules, key questions about the nature and scope of this EU policy, and the harms it seeks to prevent, remain unanswered. The inclusion of a Right to Data Protection in the EU Charter has increased the salience of these questions, which must be addressed in order to ensure the legitimacy, effectiveness and development of this Charter right and the EU data protection regime more generally. The Foundations of EU Data Protection Law is a timely and important work which sheds new light on this neglected area of law, challenging the widespread assumption that data protection is merely a subset of the right to privacy. By positioning EU data protection law within a comprehensive conceptual framework, it argues that data protection has evolved from a regulatory instrument into a fundamental right in the EU legal order and that this right grants individuals more control over more forms of data than the right to privacy. It suggests that this dimension of the right to data protection should be explicitly recognized, while identifying the practical and conceptual limits of individual control over personal data. At a time when EU data protection law is sitting firmly in the international spotlight, this book offers academics, policy-makers, and practitioners a coherent vision for the future of this key policy and fundamental right in the EU legal order, and how best to realize it.




Reforming European Data Protection Law


Book Description

This book on privacy and data protection offers readers conceptual analysis as well as thoughtful discussion of issues, practices, and solutions. It features results of the seventh annual International Conference on Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection, CPDP 2014, held in Brussels January 2014. The book first examines profiling, a persistent core issue of data protection and privacy. It covers the emergence of profiling technologies, on-line behavioral tracking, and the impact of profiling on fundamental rights and values. Next, the book looks at preventing privacy risks and harms through impact assessments. It contains discussions on the tools and methodologies for impact assessments as well as case studies. The book then goes on to cover the purported trade-off between privacy and security, ways to support privacy and data protection, and the controversial right to be forgotten, which offers individuals a means to oppose the often persistent digital memory of the web. Written during the process of the fundamental revision of the current EU data protection law by the Data Protection Package proposed by the European Commission, this interdisciplinary book presents both daring and prospective approaches. It will serve as an insightful resource for readers with an interest in privacy and data protection.




Data Protection without Data Protectionism


Book Description

This open access book offers a new account on the legal conflict between privacy and trade in the digital sphere. It develops a fundamental rights theory with a new right to continuous protection of personal data and explores the room for the application of this new right in trade law. Replicable legal analysis and practical solutions show the way to deal with cross-border data flows without violating fundamental rights and trade law principles. The interplay of privacy and trade became a topic of worldwide attention in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations concerning US mass surveillance. Based on claims brought forward by the activist Maximilian Schrems, the ECJ passed down two high-profile rulings restricting EU-US data flows. Personal data is relevant for a wide range of services that are supplied across borders and restrictions on data flows therefore have an impact on the trade with such services. After the two rulings by the ECJ, it is less clear then ever how privacy protection and trade can be brought together on an international scale. Although it was widely understood that the legal dispute over EU-US data flows concerns the broad application of EU data protection law, it has never been fully explored just how far the EU’s requirements for the protection of digital rights go and what this means beyond EU-US data flows. This book shows how the international effects of EU data protection law are rooted in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and that the architecture of EU law demands that the Charter as primary EU law takes precedence over international law. The book sets out to solve the problem of how the EU legal data transfer regime must be designed to implement the EU’s extraterritorial fundamental rights requirements without violating the principles of the WTO’s law on services. It also addresses current developments in international trade law – the conclusion of comprehensive trade agreements – and offers suggestion for the design of data flow clauses that accommodate privacy and trade.




The Future of the Public Domain


Book Description

The presence of a robust public domain is an essential precondition for cultural, social and economic development and for a healthy democratic process. But the public domain is under pressure as a result of the ongoing march towards an information economy. Items of information, which in the `old economy had little or no economic value, such as factual data, personal data, genetic information and pure ideas, have acquired independent economic value in the current information age, and consequently become the object of property rights making the information a tradable commodity. How and to what extent does the commodification of information affect the free flow of information and the integrity of the public domain? Does the freedom of expression and information, guaranteed inter alia in the European Convention on Human Rights, call for active state intervention to `save the public domain? What means both legal and practical are available or might be conceived to guarantee and foster a robust public domain? These were the main questions that were addressed in a major collaborative research project led by the Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam (IViR) in co-operation with the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT) of Tilburg University, and funded by ITeR, the Dutch National Program for Information Technology and Law. Thirteen contributions from academia worldwide make up the present book, addressing the future of the public domain from a different angle. In addition, all authors were invited to reflect upon the notion and role of the public domain in the context of information law and policy. Should this concept be limited to that of a `negative image of (intellectual) property protection, i.e. all publicly available information not subject to a property right, and therefore freely (i.e. gratis) available, or should a broader approach be taken, e.g. all information available from public sources at affordable cost? Should information policies be aimed at maximizing the public domain or optimizing information flows? To what extent are these aims congruent? This book takes a broader, `information law oriented approach towards the question of preserving the public domain, in which a wide range of interrelated legal questions converge. Issues treated in this book include: Economic analysis of the public domain Fundamental rights analysis of the public domain Impact of the application of technological protection measures and contractual restrictions on the public domain The impact of the expansion of copyright, database right and patent rights on the public domain The impact of the commodification of private data, government information, indigenous knowledge on the public domain The capacity of the Open Source and Creative Commons Movements to preserve the integrity of the public domain The Future of the Public Domain is an important work for all those interested or involved in the regulation of the knowledge economy. Legal scholars, academic and research institutions, corporate counsel, lawyers, government policymakers and regulators all these and more will benefit enormously from the thoughtful and incisive discussions presented here.




Personal Data Protection and Legal Developments in the European Union


Book Description

In the age of technological advancement, including the emergence of artificial intelligence, big data, and the internet of things, the need for privacy and protection has risen massively. This phenomenon has led to the enforcement of two major legal directives in the European Union (EU) that aim to provide vigorous protection of personal data. There is a need for research on the repercussions and developments that have materialized with these recent regulations and how the rest of the world has been affected. Personal Data Protection and Legal Developments in the European Union is an essential reference source that critically discusses different aspects of the GDPR and the Law Enforcement Directive as well as recent jurisprudential developments concerning data privacy in the EU and its member states. It also addresses relevant recent case law of the Court of Justice of the EU, the European Court of Human Rights, and national courts. Featuring research on topics such as public transparency, medical research data, and automated decision making, this book is ideally designed for law practitioners, data scientists, policymakers, IT professionals, politicians, researchers, analysts, academicians, and students working in the areas of privacy, data protection, big data, information technology, and human rights law.




Health Data Privacy under the GDPR


Book Description

The growth of data-collecting goods and services, such as ehealth and mhealth apps, smart watches, mobile fitness and dieting apps, electronic skin and ingestible tech, combined with recent technological developments such as increased capacity of data storage, artificial intelligence and smart algorithms, has spawned a big data revolution that has reshaped how we understand and approach health data. Recently the COVID-19 pandemic has foregrounded a variety of data privacy issues. The collection, storage, sharing and analysis of health- related data raises major legal and ethical questions relating to privacy, data protection, profiling, discrimination, surveillance, personal autonomy and dignity. This book examines health privacy questions in light of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the general data privacy legal framework of the European Union (EU). The GDPR is a complex and evolving body of law that aims to deal with several technological and societal health data privacy problems, while safeguarding public health interests and addressing its internal gaps and uncertainties. The book answers a diverse range of questions including: What role can the GDPR play in regulating health surveillance and big (health) data analytics? Can it catch up with internet-age developments? Are the solutions to the challenges posed by big health data to be found in the law? Does the GDPR provide adequate tools and mechanisms to ensure public health objectives and the effective protection of privacy? How does the GDPR deal with data that concern children’s health and academic research? By analysing a number of diverse questions concerning big health data under the GDPR from various perspectives, this book will appeal to those interested in privacy, data protection, big data, health sciences, information technology, the GDPR, EU and human rights law.