Keyword: Privacy
Privacy as human flourishing: Could a shift towards virtue ethics strengthen privacy protection in the age of Big Data? external link
Abstract
Privacy is commonly seen as an instrumental value in relation to negative freedom, human dignity and personal autonomy. Article 8 ECHR, protecting the right to privacy, was originally coined as a doctrine protecting the negative freedom of citizens in vertical relations, that is between citizen and state. Over the years, the Court has extended privacy protection to horizontal relations and has gradually accepted that individual autonomy is an equally important value underlying the right to privacy. However, in most of the recent cases regarding Article 8 ECHR, the Court goes beyond the protection of negative freedom and individual autonomy and instead focuses self-expression, personal development and human flourishing. Accepting this virtue ethical notion, in addition to the traditional Kantian focus on individual autonomy and human dignity, as a core value of Article 8 ECHR may prove vital for the protection of privacy in the age of Big Data.
Big data, Ethiek, European Convention on Human Rights, Grondrechten, Privacy
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Book review: ‘Reforming European Data Protection Law’ external link
Privacy as Personality Right: Why the ECtHR’s Focus on Ulterior Interests Might Prove Indispensable in the Age of external link
Abstract
Article 8 ECHR was adopted as a classic negative right, which provides the citizen protection from unlawful and arbitrary interference by the state with his private and family life, home and communication. The ECtHR, however, has gradually broadened its scope so that the right to privacy encroaches upon other provisions embodied in the Convention, includes rights and freedoms explicitly left out of the ECHR by the drafters of the Convention and functions as the main pillar on which the Court has built its practice of opening up the Convention for new rights and freedoms. Consequently, Article 8 ECHR has been transformed from a classic privacy right to a personality right, providing protection to the personal development of individuals. Apart from its theoretical significance, this shift might prove indispensable in the age of Big Data, as personality rights protect a different type of interest, which is far more easy to substantiate in the new technological paradigm than those associated with the right to privacy.
Big data, Grondrechten, Privacy
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Het mijnenveld van het informatierecht external link
Abstract
In theorie lijkt de bescherming van persoonsgegevens op orde: internetbedrijven moeten mensen informeren over wat er met hun gegevens gebeurt, en doorgaans toestemming vragen voor ze die gegevens gebruiken. Maar in de praktijk schiet die ‘geïnformeerde toestemming’ als privacybeschermingsmaatregel tekort. Om privacy beter te beschermen moet volgens onderzoeker Frederik Borgesius de privacywetgeving beter worden nageleefd en gehandhaafd én op de schop. Hij pleit voor een breder privacydebat. “We móeten dat mijnenveld in.”
bescherming persoonsgegevens, Grondrechten, Privacy, wetgeving
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Verzameldrift ‘big data’ grijpt om zich heen external link
Do privacy and data protection rules apply to legal persons and should they? A proposal for a two-tiered system external link
Abstract
Privacy and data protection rules are usually said to protect the individual against intrusive governments and nosy companies. These rights guarantee the individual's freedom, personal autonomy and human dignity, among others. More and more, however, legal persons are also allowed to invoke the rights to privacy and data protection. Prima facie, it seems difficult to reconcile this trend with the standard interpretation of those rights, as legal persons do not enjoy freedom, personal autonomy or human dignity and it seems uncertain why business interests should be protected under privacy and data protection rules. On second thoughts, however, it appears rather unproblematic to grant legal persons partial protection under these regimes, especially when it recognizes general duties of care for data processors and governmental agencies.
Data protection, individual interests, legal persons, Privacy, societal interests
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Hacktivism 1-2-3: how privacy enhancing technologies change the face of anonymous hacktivism external link
Abstract
This short essay explores how the notion of hacktivism changes due to easily accessible, military grade Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs). Privacy Enhancing Technologies, technological tools which provide anonymous communications and protect users from online surveillance enable new forms of online political activism. Through the short summary of the ad-hoc vigilante group Anonymous, this article describes hacktivism 1.0 as electronic civil disobedience conducted by outsiders. Through the analysis of Wikileaks, the anonymous whistleblowing website, it describes how strong PETs enable the development of hacktivism 2.0, where the source of threat is shifted from outsiders to insiders. Insiders have access to documents with which power can be exposed, and who, by using PETs, can anonymously engage in political action. We also describe the emergence of a third generation of hacktivists who use PETs to disengage and create their own autonomous spaces rather than to engage with power through anonymous whistleblowing.
anonymous, Grondrechten, Hacktivism, Privacy, Privacy enhancing technologies, Wikileaks
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How to assess privacy violations in the age of Big Data? Analysing the three different tests developed by the ECtHR and adding for a fourth one external link
Abstract
It is commonly believed that privacy cases are resolved by balancing the private interest (e.g. personal autonomy) and the common interest (e.g. national security) involved with a particular privacy violation. Clearly, this approach no longer holds in the age of Big Data, in which massive amounts of personal data are gathered without a pre-established goal. Not only is the balancing test inapplicable because it is often unclear how certain data gathering and processing initiatives improve the societal interest, but it is also hard to demonstrate whether and if so how an individual has suffered from such massive data processing systems. Besides the balancing test, however, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) applies two other tests when dealing with privacy issues. Both have an added value when applied to privacy violations following from Big Data processes. Still, if Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is to retain its significance in the new technological environment, it might be necessary to develop a new test, the rudiments of which might already be found in the Court's case law.
botsing fundamentele rechten, Grondrechten, Privacy, Recht op gegevensbescherming, recht op privacy, verwerking persoonsgegevens voor persoonlijke doeleinden