Definition:
Data protection (Ro: Protecția datelor, Fr: Protection des données, Es: Protección de datos, Gr: προστασία προσωπικών δεδομένων) (Internet Law, Consumer Law, International Trade Law, European Law, International Private Law) = a concept that refers to a natural person’s personal data (any information that might directly or indirectly identify them, e.g. name, social number, e-mail address and so on, for further details, see personal data). Data protection also refers to, but is not limited to privacy.
Data protection includes a series of rights that a data subject - an identifiable or identified natural person – has. At international level, the legal acts recognise mainly the right to privacy. The right to the protection of personal data is enshrined only in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights which stipulates that the EU citizens have this right. As data protection has become an issue of interest over time in the European Union, a data protection legislation package has been adopted in May 2016 that made the EU fit for the digital age. The new EU laws have had a great impact outside the member states due to its extraterritorial effect, determining the modification of the laws in order to accommodate the new conditions of data processing that the processors have to meet in order to process the personal data of the EU citizens or within the EU territory. According to the new and improved rules, the data subject has the following rights that ensure their data protection: the right to access, the right to be informed, the right to erasure, the right to rectification, the right to portability, the right to restrict processing, the right to object and so on.
Data protection also refers to a series of principles that govern the data processing: (i) lawfulness, fairness and transparency; (ii) purpose limitation; (iii) data minimisation; (iv) accuracy; (v) storage limitation; (vi) integrity and confidentiality.
Useful links:
Legislation
http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights [ English]
https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_RON.pdf - The European Convention of Human Rights [Romanian]
https://rm.coe.int/convention-108-convention-for-the-protection-of-individuals-with-regar/16808b36f1 - Council of Europe, Convention 108+ for the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data [English]
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/contents/enacted - Data Protection Act 2018, United Kingdom [English]
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32016R0679 – Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) [English]
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32016L0680 - Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA [English]
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32018R1725&from=EN - Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the EU institutions, bodies, offices and agencies [English]
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:31995L0046 – Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, (no longer in force) [English]
https://www.dataprotection.ro/servlet/ViewDocument?id=35 – Legea nr. 677/2001 pentru protecția persoanelor cu privire la prelucrarea datelor cu caracter personal și libera circulație a acestor date / Law no. 677/2001 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, (no longer in force) [Romanian]
Case Law
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A62012CJ0131 – The European Court of Justice, Judgement of 14 May 2014, Google Spain, C-131/12, EU:C:2014:317 [English]
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1544996858587&uri=CELEX:62001CJ0101 - The European Court of Justice, Judgement of 6 November 2003, Lindqvist, C-101/01, EU:C:2003:596 [English]
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1544996932323&uri=CELEX:62014CJ0362 - The European Court of Justice, Judgment of 6 October 2015, Schrems, C-362/14, EU:C:2015:650 [English]
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=77C44BBA9B10F390635CB25452BBB024 - The European Court of Justice, Judgement of 30 May 2013, Worten, C-342/12, EU:C:2013:355 [English]
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=76075&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=13250826 - The European Court of Justice, Judgement of 16 December 2008, Tietosuojavaltuutettu, C-73/07, EU:C:2008:727 [English]
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=155114&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=13251248 - The European Court of Justice, Judgement of 17 July 2014, YS v Minister voor Immigratie, C-141/12, EU:C:2014:2081 [English]
https://casetext.com/case/melvin-v-reid - Court of Appeal of California, Fourth District, Melvin v. Reid, 112 Cal. App. 285 (Cal. Ct. App. 1931) [English]
Online Publications
Tzanou M., The Fundamental Right to Data Protection: Normative Value in the Context of Counter-Terrorism Surveillance (May 1, 2017) in M. Tzanou, The Fundamental Right to Data Protection: Normative Value in the Context of Counter-Terrorism Surveillance (Oxford, Hart Publishing 2017). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3076400 [English]
Ungureanu C.T., Personal data protection in international contracts, in Analele Stiintifice ale Universitatii „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” Iasi, Tomul LXIII, Stiinte Juridice, nr. II, 2017 [Romanian]
Warren S.D., Brandeis L.D., The Right to Privacy, Harvard Law Review, vol. 4, no. 5, 1890, available at http://www.english.illinois.edu [English]
Publications
Brkan M., Psychogiopoulou E., Courts, Privacy and Data Protection in the Digital Environment, Edward Elgar Publishing, United Kingdom, 2017 [English]
Long I., Data Protection. The new Rules, Jordan Publishing Limited, New edition, 2016 [English]
Sandru S., Protectia datelor personale si viata private, Ed. Hamangiu, Bucuresti, 2016 [Romanian]
Ticher P., Data protection vs Freedom of Information. Access and personal data, IT Governance Publisher, United Kingdom, 2008 [English]
Zanfir G. Protectia datelor personale. Drepturile persoanei vizate, Ed. C.H.Beck, Bucuresti, 2015 [Romanian]
Practical Use
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) and the Council of Europe (2018), Handbook on European Data Protection Law – Edition 2018, Luxembourg, Publications Office, May 2018 [English]
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), Hate Crime Recording and Data Collection Practice Across the EU, Luxembourg, Publications Office, 2018 [English]
The list of the members of the European Data Protection Board and links to the national authorities competent to supervise the data protection practices around the European Union: https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/board/members_en [English]
The EU Data Protection Officer: https://ec.europa.eu/info/departments/data-protection-officer_en [English]
The National Supervisory Authority for Personal Data Processing in Romania: https://www.dataprotection.ro [Romanian/English/French]