scholarly journals Tracing Individuals under the EU Regime on Serious, Cross-border Health Threats: An Appraisal of the System of Personal Data Protection

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 700-722 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrycja DĄBROWSKA-KŁOSIŃSKA

AbstractThe article tackles the issue of personal data protection in case of tracing (looking for) individual persons who have been exposed to health risks pursuant to the EU Decision 1082/2013 on Serious, Cross-border Health Threats. This problem exemplifies just one among many challenges of the health-security nexus in the EU. That is, it regards a certain trade-off between the limitation of individual rights and securing populations’ safety. The text appraises the safeguards for the (lawful) limitation of the right to data protection after an in-depth examination of the provisions of the Health Threats Decision, its implementing measures, the reports on its operation, and in light of the general EU data protection laws. In conclusion, it claims that a number of improvements are needed because of the incompleteness, and the insufficient coherence and transparency of the EU regime for health threats. The established shortcomings are, at least in part, caused by the new EU “integrated approach” to health and security. In effect, an overall philosophy of reforms of public health policy in the name of “all-hazards security” applied in the Health Threats Decision can result in a reduction of the adequate level of protection of individuals’ personal data.

2017 ◽  
Vol 107 ◽  
pp. 53-81
Author(s):  
Patrycja Dąbrowska-Kłosińska

APPLYING THE RULES ON CROSS-BORDER THREATS TO HEALTH AND THE PROTECTION OF PERSONAL DATA IN THE EUThe paper concerns a possible conflict between the scope of data protection of individuals, including their medical data, and the necessity of preparing and reacting to serious cross-border health threats at the EU level, for example, to pandemics. The case-study of Mr Andrew Speaker, who was ordered not to leave the US by the US Centre for Disease Prevention and Control because of his TB infection, but was travelling through Europe in 2007, provides an illustration to problematic legal issues. The text presents EU regulatory tools which aim at preventing the spread of infectious diseases and other serious cross-border health threats as provided by Decision 1082/2013 and the relevant provisions ensuring data protection of individuals in this context. The objective of the extensive normative analysis of the current regulatory framework is an attempt at assessment whether the current system of EU rules can offer an effective protection of personal data when the provisions on pandemics’ prevention are applied.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 1283-1308
Author(s):  
Jie (Jeanne) Huang

AbstractThe recent COVID-19 outbreak has pushed the tension of protecting personal data in a transnational context to an apex. Using a real case where the personal data of an international traveler was illegally released by Chinese media, this Article identifies three trends that have emerged at each stage of conflict-of-laws analysis for lex causae: (1) The EU, the US, and China characterize the right to personal data differently; (2) the spread-out unilateral applicable law approach comes from the fact that all three jurisdictions either consider the law for personal data protection as a mandatory law or adopt connecting factors leading to the law of the forum; and (3) the EU and China strongly advocate deAmericanization of substantive data protection laws. The trends and their dynamics provide valuable implications for developing the choice of laws for transnational personal data. First, this finding informs parties that jurisdiction is a predominant issue in data breach cases because courts and regulators would apply the law of the forum. Second, currently, there is no international treaty or model law on choice-of-law issues for transnational personal data. International harmonization efforts will be a long and difficult journey considering how the trends demonstrate not only the states’ irreconcilable interests but also how states may consider these interests as their fundamental values that they do not want to trade off. Therefore, for states and international organizations, a feasible priority is to achieve regional coordination or interoperation among states with similar values on personal data protection.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Huang

The recent COVID-19 outbreak has pushed the tension of protecting personal data in a transnational context to an apex. Using a real case where the personal data of an international traveller was illegally released by Chinese media, the paper identifies that three trends have emerged at the each stage of conflict-of-laws analysis for lex causae: (1) the EU, the US, and China characterize the right to personal data differently, (2) the spread-out unilateral applicable law approach comes from the fact that all three jurisdictions either consider the law for personal data protection as a mandatory law or adopt connecting factors leading to the law of the forum, and (3) the EU and China strongly advocate de-Americanisation of substantive data protection laws. The trends and their dynamics provide valuable implications for developing the choice of laws for transnational personal data. First, this finding informs parties that jurisdiction is a predominant issue in data breach cases because courts and regulators would apply the forum law. Second, currently there is no international treaty or model law on choice-of-law issues for transnational personal data. International harmonization efforts will be a long and difficult journey considering how the trends demonstrate not only the states’ irreconcilable interests, but also how states may consider these interests as their fundamental values that they do not want to trade off. Therefore, for states and international organisations, a feasible priority is to achieve regional coordination or interoperation among states with similar values on personal data protection.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Siyue Li ◽  
Chunyu Kit

Abstract Based on the self-compiled corpora of the European Union and Chinese laws on data governance, this study adopts a corpus-driven approach to comparatively study the legislative design of the EU and China on digital governance, especially on key issues such as data protection, data processing and utilization, and cross-border data transfer. It is found through corpus analysis that the EU has developed a relatively comprehensive data protection system, which internally focuses on the protection of individual data rights and externally sets high standards on the cross-border transfer of data. Despite the data protection paradigm as it manifests, the EU is facing new challenges on data exportation, data jurisdiction in the competitive digital marketplace. Shared the same concern on the data protection legislation, Chinese data law has made significant progress in personal data protection with the nascent enactment of Data Security Law and Personal Data Protection Law. Notably, Chinese legislation features the hierarchal taxonomy of data under the principle of the national security exception, while it requires more legislative skills, flexible response mechanisms, and more subordinate laws to prevent future data security threats. Moreover, the corpus-driven method conducted in this study provides evidential insights for the comparative legal textual studies across jurisdictions.


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 10-14
Author(s):  
Svetlana Yakovleva ◽  
Kristina Irion

The European Union's (EU) negotiating position on cross-border data flows, which the EU has recently included in its proposal for the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks on e-commerce, not only enshrines the protection of privacy and personal data as fundamental rights, but also creates a broad exception for a Member's restrictions on cross-border transfers of personal data. This essay argues that maintaining such a strong position in trade negotiations is essential for the EU to preserve the internal compatibility of its legal system when it comes to the right to protection of personal data under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (EU Charter) and the recently adopted General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 77-93
Author(s):  
Alexandra Maria Rodrigues Araújo

Data protection is a fundamental right protected by the EU as well as several international human rights instruments. However, an adequate relation of this right faces new challenges every day. A complicated area for the effectiveness of EU data protection law is the cross-border transfer of personal data. In European law, the main principle applicable to international data flows is the principle of adequate protection. This principle implies that a transfer to a third country/international organization is only permissible if an adequate level of protection of the personal data transferred is guaranteed. In this regard, this paper examines the application of this principle in the adequacy decisions adopted by the European Commission.


Author(s):  
Agnese Reine-Vītiņa

Mūsdienās tiesības uz privāto dzīvi nepieciešamas ikvienā demokrātiskā sabiedrībā, un šo tiesību iekļaušana konstitūcijā juridiski garantē fiziskas personas rīcības brīvību un vienlaikus arī citu – valsts pamatlikumā noteikto – cilvēka tiesību īstenošanu [5]. Personas datu aizsardzības institūts tika izveidots, izpratnes par tiesību uz personas privātās dzīves neaizskaramību saturu paplašinot 20. gadsimta 70. gados, kad vairāku Eiropas valstu valdības uzsāka informācijas apstrādes projektus, piemēram, tautas skaitīšanu u. c. Informācijas tehnoloģiju attīstība ļāva arvien vairāk informācijas par personām glabāt un apstrādāt elektroniski. Viena no tiesību problēmām bija informācijas vākšana par fizisku personu un tiesību uz privātās dzīves neaizskaramību ievērošana. Lai nodrošinātu privātās dzīves aizsardzību, atsevišķas Eiropas valstis pēc savas iniciatīvas pieņēma likumus par datu aizsardzību. Pirmie likumi par personas datu aizsardzību Eiropā tika pieņemti Vācijas Federatīvajā Republikā, tad Zviedrijā (1973), Norvēģijā (1978) un citur [8, 10]. Ne visas valstis pieņēma likumus par datu aizsardzību vienlaikus, tāpēc Eiropas Padome nolēma izstrādāt konvenciju, lai unificētu datu aizsardzības noteikumus un principus. Nowadays, the right to privacy is indispensable in every democratic society and inclusion of such rights in the constitution, guarantees legally freedom of action of a natural person and, simultaneously, implementation of other human rights established in the fundamental law of the state. The institute of personal data protection was established by expanding the understanding of the content of the right to privacy in the 70’s of the 19th century, when the government of several European countries initiated information processing projects, such as population census etc. For the development of information technology, more and more information on persons was kept and processed in electronic form. One of the legal problems was gathering of information on natural persons and the right to privacy. In order to ensure the protection of privacy, separate European countries, on their own initiative, established a law on data protection. The first laws on the protection of personal data in Europe were established in the Federal Republic of Germany, then in Sweden (1973), Norway (1978) and elsewhere. Not all countries adopted laws on data protection at the same time, so the Council of Europe decided to elaborate a convention to unify data protection rules and principles.


Author(s):  
Ioannis Iglezakis

Digital libraries provide many advantages compared with traditional libraries, such as wide and round the clock availability of resources, lack of physical boundaries, etc. However, the disclosure of personally identifiable information in the course of processing activities may lead to an invasion of privacy of library users, without their being aware of it. In fact, privacy threats are increased in the digital environment, in which digital libraries operate. The right to privacy in the library is “the right to open inquiry without having the subject of one’s interest examined or scrutinized by others” (ALA, 2005). Users of digital libraries have similar privacy expectations when making use of their services. The issues concerning the privacy of digital libraries’ patrons are thus addressed in comparative perspective, in this chapter. In more particular, the legal regulations with regard to data protection in digital libraries in the EU and the US are presented. The comparative analysis of the two legal orders shows differences and similarities, but also highlights loopholes of protection.


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