Privacy Nudges

To fight the risks caused by excessive self-disclosure especially regarding sensitive data such as genetic ones, it might be desirable to prevent certain disclosures. When doing so, regulators traditionally compel protection, for example by prohibiting the collection and/or use of genetic data even if citizens would like to share these data. This chapter provides an introduction into an alternative approach which has recently received increased scholarly attention: privacy protection by the use of nudges. Such nudges may in the future provide an alternative to compelled protection of genetic data or complement the traditional approach. This chapter first describes behavioral psychology's findings that citizens sometimes act irrational. This statement is consequently explained with the insights that these irrationalities are often predictable. Thus, a solution might be to correct them by the use of nudges.

Sexual Orientation as a Human Right

In this chapter, the authors examine the matter of sexual orientation as a human right. Human rights violations take many forms, from denials of the rights to life to discrimination in accessing economic, social, and cultural rights. More than 80 countries still maintain laws that make same-sex consensual relations between adults a criminal offence. Those seeking to peaceably affirm diverse sexual orientations or gender identities have also experienced violence and discrimination. A gay man was entitled to live freely and openly in accordance with his sexual identity under the Refugee Convention (“the Convention”) and it was no answer to the claim for asylum that he would conceal his sexual identity in order to avoid the persecution that would follow if he did not do so. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom had to solve this complex problem as many issues were raised in the hearing.

Substantial Equality and Human Dignity

Equality is a multi-dimensional concept. In the context of law, it is principally identified with formal legal equality comprising both numerical and proportional equality. Numerical equality grants all individuals the possibility to uphold the same rights and obligations before the law. Contrary, proportional equality imposes the same treatment of the alike and different treatment of the non-alike. Nevertheless, the second principle of proportional equality calling for unlike treatment of the unlike seems to be equally challenging. When implementing this principle, the emerging challenges stem from the widely accepted Western perception that identifies diversity with inequality and inferiority. This chapter explores these highly challenging issues attempting to enlighten the interpretation of the principle of equality in conjunction with the most cherished value of human dignity.

Privacy as a Right

This chapter examines not only the history of the term privacy but also its international recognition as a fully protected right. Given the wide array of definitions of privacy, it can be said that the term seeks its identity. Depending on time and space, this right has had various traits, beyond the obstacles of a strict definition. The aspects or features of the term are those that lead to the necessity of its international recognition and protection, especially in the present digital and technological environment, where its foundation is reconsidered and internationally protected in an effective way.

The Conservatism of the European Court of Humans Rights Regarding Abortions on Demand

In this chapter, the authors negotiate the fact that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) missed the opportunity to recognize the right to abortion under specific criteria that are harmonized with the right to life and the right to privacy. It obviously remains a triumph of nationalism and of religious power over human dignity.

Abortion

This chapter describes the ethical and deontological adventures of the unborn child with regard to abortion. According to Sumerian law, if a man strikes a free-born woman causing her to lose her unborn child, he must pay ten shekels1 of silver as a fine for her loss, whereas if a man deliberately strikes the wife of a free-born citizen causing her to lose her unborn child, he must pay a fine of one-third of a mina of silver. Nowadays, one should underline that every human being at the very beginning of life and even before birth treads a long and adventurous road filled with moral dilemmas and legal repercussions. The fact that this refers to the life of every person-to-be is not under question in this treatise. Likewise, the authors assume that every human is the bearer of human dignity.

Domination, Asylum, and Sexual Orientation

In this chapter, the authors determine that in the society of control, denizens who exercise their right to seek asylum on ground pertaining to sexual orientation are forced to prove their homosexuality through various humiliating ways during the asylum-granting process. Do public authorities aim to reject the criminalization of sexual orientation, eventually? Do they have the possibility to abolish the detention centres in the name of human dignity, human life and liberty, rights established by national, international, and European laws?

Genetic Privacy

This chapter analyzes the European Union framing of the protection of genetic privacy in the context of the European Commission's 2012 proposal to amend the 95/46/EC Data Protection Directive. This market-driven proposal, fitting a wider European movement with regard to health-related legal framework, takes into account the challenges to privacy protection brought by rapid technological development. Although the proposal is an attempt to clarify the 1995 Data Protection Directive, including the question of genetic data, it also creates some controversial grey areas, especially concerning the extensive regulatory role to be played by the European Commission. With regard to genetic privacy, this chapter takes the opportunity to develop on this paradox, and gives an analysis of the European design on the matter.

Sterilization of Women

This chapter explores the international practices and policies regarding women sterilization and the legal and ethical dilemmas they pose. As is analyzed, women, in many places of the world, frequently rely on access to sterilization procedures in order to control their fertility at will. However, this is not always the case. Often, women are forced to undergo permanent and irreversible sterilization, without being aware of it or without their informed consent. As is illustrated in this chapter, despite the condemnation of such practices by the United Nations (UN), cases of coerced sterilization are recorded all around the globe, especially targeting women with mental disabilities, the poor or socially stigmatized, and those perceived as “unworthy” of reproduction. This chapter underlines the grave violations of human rights caused by involuntary sterilization and the relevant case law of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the protection of women in danger.

Remarks and Considerations on the CJEU Decision on Biometric Passports

Biometric passports, namely passports including a storage medium that contains the facial image and two fingerprints of their owner, became mandatory when Regulation (EC) 2252/2004 entered into force. In the case C-291/12, the Court of Justice of the European Union was asked to examine whether biometric passports constitute a possible infringement of the fundamental right to the protection of personal data. This chapter aims at analyzing the aforementioned Judgment of the CJEU, focusing in particular on the application of the proportionality principle. The authors attempt to formulate some additional remarks and considerations on the critical matters of that case, and to this end, they especially focus on the processing of multiple biometric elements, the existence of alternative and less intrusive means, as well as the security of the biometric passports.