Public Registers Caught between Open Government and Data Protection – Personal Data, Principles of Proportionality and the Public Interest

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geert Lokhorst ◽  
Mireille Van Eechoud
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Data Protection ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
Open Government ◽  
The Public

Processing of personal data relating to the health of the data subject in a pandemic situation

Glimpse ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-99
Author(s):  
Juan Francisco Rodriguez Ayuso ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Data Protection ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
The State ◽  
Community Level ◽  
Interested Party ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Vital Interest ◽  
Data Subject

This study offers a systematic, exhaustive and updated investigation of the declaration of the state of alarm and the processing of personal data relating to the health of citizens affected and/or potentially affected by the exceptional situation resulting from COVID-19. Specifically, it analyses the distinction between the state of alarm and the states of exception and siege and the possible effect on the fundamental right to the protection of personal data in exceptional health crisis situations and the effects that this declaration may have on the applicable regulations, issued, at a Community level. Next, and taking into consideration all the general and sectorial regulations applicable to data protection and health, we proceed to the analysis of the legitimate bases and the exceptions that, applicable to situations of health emergency such as the present one, enable the processing, taking into account the nature of the person who intervenes as the controller, making special emphasis on the public interest pursued by the Public Administrations and on the vital interest of the interested party.

Article 25 Data protection by design and by default

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee A. Bygrave
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Data Protection ◽  
Codes Of Conduct ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Individual Decision Making ◽  
The Public ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Article 5 ◽  
Data Subject

Article 4(5) (Definition of ‘pseudonymisation’) (see too recital 28); Article 5(2) (Accountability) (see too recital 11); Article 6(4)(e) (Compatibility); Article 22 (Automated individual decision-making, including profiling) (see too recital 71); Article 24 (Responsibility of controllers); Article 28 (Processors) (see too recital 81); Article 32 (Security of processing) (see too recital 83); Article 34(3)(a) (Communication of personal data breach to data subject) (see too recitals 87–88); Article 35 (Data protection impact assessment) (see too recital 84); Article 40 (Codes of conduct); Article 83(2)(d) and 83(4) (Fines); Article 89(1) (Safeguards relating to processing of personal data for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes).

scholarly journals COVID-19 Research: Navigating the European General Data Protection Regulation (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Regina Becker ◽  
Adrian Thorogood ◽  
Johan Ordish ◽  
Michael J.S. Beauvais
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Data Protection ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
Individual Member ◽  
Sensitive Data ◽  
General Data Protection Regulation ◽  
The Public ◽  
General Data ◽  
High Standards ◽  
National Legislatures

UNSTRUCTURED Researchers must collaborate globally to rapidly respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. In Europe, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulates the processing of personal data, including health data of value to researchers. Even during a pandemic, research still requires a legal basis for the processing of sensitive data, additional justification for its processing, and a basis for any transfer of data outside Europe. The GDPR does provide legal grounds and derogations that can support research addressing a pandemic, if the data processing activities are proportionate to the aim pursued and accompanied by suitable safeguards. During a pandemic, a public interest basis may be more promising for research than a consent basis, given the high standards set out in the GDPR. However, the GDPR leaves many aspects of the public interest basis to be determined by individual Member States, which have not fully or uniformly made use of all options. The consequence is an inconsistent legal patchwork that displays insufficient clarity and impedes joint approaches. The COVID-19 experience provides lessons for national legislatures. Responsiveness to pandemics requires clear and harmonized laws that consider the related practical challenges and support collaborative global research in the public interest.

scholarly journals Biobank and Biomedical Research: Responsibilities of Controllers and Processors Under the EU General Data Protection Regulation

2021 ◽  
pp. 61-89
Author(s):  
Ana Nordberg
Keyword(s):  
Biomedical Research ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Data Protection ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
General Data Protection Regulation ◽  
The Public ◽  
General Data ◽  
The Eu

AbstractBiobanks are essential infrastructures in current health and biomedical research. Advanced scientific research increasingly relies on processing and correlating large amounts of genetic, clinical and behavioural data. These data are particularly sensitive in nature and the risk of privacy invasion and misuse is high. The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) developed and increased harmonisation, resulting in a framework in which the specific duties and obligations of entities processing personal data—controllers and processors—were defined. Biobanks, in the exercise of their functions, assume the role of controllers and/or processors and as such need to comply with a number of complex rules. This chapter analyses these rules in the light of Article 89 GDPR, which creates safeguards and derogations relating to ‘processing for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes’. It identifies key compliance challenges faced by biobanks as data controllers and processors, such as determining whether the GDPR is applicable and its intersection with other regulations; when a biobank should be considered controller and processor; and what are the main duties of biobanks as data controllers and processors and options for compliance.

scholarly journals COVID-19 Research: Navigating the European General Data Protection Regulation

10.2196/19799 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (8) ◽  
pp. e19799 ◽  
Author(s):  
Regina Becker ◽  
Adrian Thorogood ◽  
Johan Ordish ◽  
Michael J.S. Beauvais
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Data Protection ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
Individual Member ◽  
Sensitive Data ◽  
General Data Protection Regulation ◽  
The Public ◽  
General Data ◽  
High Standards ◽  
National Legislatures

Researchers must collaborate globally to rapidly respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. In Europe, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulates the processing of personal data, including health data of value to researchers. Even during a pandemic, research still requires a legal basis for the processing of sensitive data, additional justification for its processing, and a basis for any transfer of data outside Europe. The GDPR does provide legal grounds and derogations that can support research addressing a pandemic, if the data processing activities are proportionate to the aim pursued and accompanied by suitable safeguards. During a pandemic, a public interest basis may be more promising for research than a consent basis, given the high standards set out in the GDPR. However, the GDPR leaves many aspects of the public interest basis to be determined by individual Member States, which have not fully or uniformly made use of all options. The consequence is an inconsistent legal patchwork that displays insufficient clarity and impedes joint approaches. The COVID-19 experience provides lessons for national legislatures. Responsiveness to pandemics requires clear and harmonized laws that consider the related practical challenges and support collaborative global research in the public interest.

scholarly journals Public Interest, Health Research and Data Protection Law: Establishing a Legitimate Trade-Off between Individual Control and Research Access to Health Data

Laws ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark J. Taylor ◽  
Tess Whitton
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Data Protection ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Health Data ◽  
Personal Health ◽  
Positive Contribution ◽  
Data Governance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Individual Control ◽  
Data Protection Law

The United Kingdom’s Data Protection Act 2018 introduces a new public interest test applicable to the research processing of personal health data. The need for interpretation and application of this new safeguard creates a further opportunity to craft a health data governance landscape deserving of public trust and confidence. At the minimum, to constitute a positive contribution, the new test must be capable of distinguishing between instances of health research that are in the public interest, from those that are not, in a meaningful, predictable and reproducible manner. In this article, we derive from the literature on theories of public interest a concept of public interest capable of supporting such a test. Its application can defend the position under data protection law that allows a legal route through to processing personal health data for research purposes that does not require individual consent. However, its adoption would also entail that the public interest test in the 2018 Act could only be met if all practicable steps are taken to maximise preservation of individual control over the use of personal health data for research purposes. This would require that consent is sought where practicable and objection respected in almost all circumstances. Importantly, we suggest that an advantage of relying upon this concept of the public interest, to ground the test introduced by the 2018 Act, is that it may work to promote the social legitimacy of data protection legislation and the research processing that it authorises without individual consent (and occasionally in the face of explicit objection).

Article 5 Principles relating to processing of personal data

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cécile de Terwangne
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
Article 5

Article 6(1) (Lawfulness of processing) (see too recitals 40–49); Article 6(4) (Exceptions to the requirement of compatible purposes for further processing and criteria to ascertain whether a purpose of further processing is compatible with the purpose for which the personal data are initially collected) (see too recital 50); Article 12 (Transparent information) (see too recitals 58–59); Articles 13–15 (Information and access to personal data) (see also recitals 60–64); Article 24 (Responsibility of the controller) (see too recitals 74–78) ; Article 32 (Security of processing) (see too recital 83); Article 89(1) (Safeguards and derogations relating to processing for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes) (see too recitals 158–163).

Conditions of the Right to Erasure

2020 ◽  
pp. 196-274
Author(s):  
Jef Ausloos
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Legal Obligation ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third ◽  
Legal Provisions ◽  
The Right ◽  
Data Subject

This chapter zooms in on Article 17 GDPR, on the right to erasure (‘right to be forgotten’). It meticulously dissects the three paragraphs of this provision. The first paragraph lists six rights-to-erasure triggers which can be summarized as: (a) purpose expiration; (b) withdrawal of consent; (c) right to object; (d) unlawful processing; (e) legal obligation; and (f) withdrawal of consent by minors in the online environment. The second paragraph comprises an odd extension of the right to erasure, enabling data subjects to request that controllers who have made the personal data public, communicate potential erasure to anyone else processing that same personal data. The third paragraph lists five exemptions to the right to erasure, summarized as: (a) freedom of expression and information; (b) legal obligation or task carried out in the public interest or official authority; (c) public interest in the area of public health; (d) public interest archiving, scientific and historical research, or statistical purposes; and (e) legal claims. What becomes clear right away is how both the right-to-erasure’s triggers and exemptions all refer to other legal provisions in and outside the GDPR. As such, the right to erasure can be seen as a central hub in the GDPR, bringing together key data protection principles from the perspective of data subject empowerment.

Privacy in the 21st Century

2015 ◽  
pp. 1638-1652
Author(s):  
Panagiotis Kitsos ◽  
Aikaterini Yannoukakou
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Personal Information ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Patriot Act ◽  
The Public ◽  
Personal Data Protection ◽  
The Common

The events of 9/11 along with the bombarding in Madrid and London forced governments to resort to new structures of privacy safeguarding and electronic surveillance under the common denominator of terrorism and transnational crime fighting. Legislation as US PATRIOT Act and EU Data Retention Directive altered fundamentally the collection, processing and sharing methods of personal data, while it granted increased powers to police and law enforcement authorities concerning their jurisdiction in obtaining and processing personal information to an excessive degree. As an aftermath of the resulted opacity and the public outcry, a shift is recorded during the last years towards a more open governance by the implementation of open data and cloud computing practices in order to enhance transparency and accountability from the side of governments, restore the trust between the State and the citizens, and amplify the citizens' participation to the decision-making procedures. However, privacy and personal data protection are major issues in all occasions and, thus, must be safeguarded without sacrificing national security and public interest on one hand, but without crossing the thin line between protection and infringement on the other. Where this delicate balance stands, is the focal point of this paper trying to demonstrate that it is better to be cautious with open practices than hostage of clandestine practices.

Article 19 Notification obligation regarding rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gloria González Fuster
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Information Communication ◽  
The Public ◽  
Right To Be Forgotten ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Data Subject

Article 4(9) (Definition of ‘recipient’); Article 12 (Transparent information, communication and modalities for the exercise of the rights of the data subject); Article 16 (Right to rectification), Article 17(1) (Right to erasure (‘right to be forgotten’)); Article 18 (Right to restriction of processing); Article 58(2)(g) (Powers of supervisory authorities); Article 89(3) (Safeguards and derogations relating to processing for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes).

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