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The search returned 3 results.

Does the Future Hold More Rights or More Proportionality? journal article

The GDPR-Message

Paul de Hert, Vagelis Papakonstantinou

European Data Protection Law Review, Volume 9 (2023), Issue 4, Page 393 - 398

The digital world occupying large swathes of individuals’ lives in a trend that shows no signs of abating any time soon, the perennial question in human rights protection has been brought once again, forcefully, to the fore: do we need new human rights to deal with new societal and technological developments? Or are the ones already in place enough, complemented by recourse to the general principles of human rights, specifically to that of proportionality? Making use of the GDPR as a case-study in this regard, this paper elaborates upon the two, foreseeable, answers to this question. The first, within a digital constitutionalism context, suggests the introduction of new rights that will be suitable to protect individuals within the digital world. The second suggests that no new rights are necessary and that recourse should be made to the principle of proportionality instead. The choice by policy-makers between these two options will decide the future for the protection of individual rights in Europe. Keywords: GDPR, digital constitutionalism, principle of proportionality


When GDPR-Principles Blind Each Other: Accountability, Not Transparency, at the Heart of Algorithmic Governance journal article

Paul de Hert, Guillermo Lazcoz

European Data Protection Law Review, Volume 8 (2022), Issue 1, Page 31 - 40

Transparency has been at the centre of the debate on algorithmic governance. However, when the GDPR was adopted in 2016, the legislator preferred to establish accountability as the core of the Regulation's principles, rather than transparency. Unfortunately, accountability does not yet seem to be playing the role it was assigned in the data protection ecosystem, at least when it comes to algorithmic decision-making. To turn this scenario around, we propose a reflective exercise in which we look at the concept of accountability and how it was introduced in the GDPR. By emphasising on the human element in algorithmic decision-making, we find a systematic and process-oriented accountability present in the GDPR. Following arguments already made in the literature, we hold that this kind of accountability is well suited for algorithmic governance. Moreover, we argue that it could be strengthened by the Commission's proposal for a Regulation on Artificial Intelligence. Keywords: Accountability | Transparency | GDPR | Algorithmic Decision-Making | Artificial Intelligence


Regulating Big Data in and out of the Data Protection Policy Field: journal article

Two Scenarios of Post-GDPR Law-Making and the Actor Perspective

Paul de Hert, Juraj Sajfert

European Data Protection Law Review, Volume 5 (2019), Issue 3, Page 338 - 351

Why is Big Data absent in the recent basic data protection documents of the European Union (EU) and the Council of Europe (CoE)? Why not one single reference to Big Data practices - be it to regulate or to prohibit it - in the recent General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679, the Data Protection Law Enforcement Directive (EU) 2016/680 and the Modernised CoE Convention 108 for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data (Convention 108+)? Some actors in the policy field considered Big Data too dangerous and counted on existing data protection principles to tame the beast. Others simply ignored the phenomenon or were not aware of the potential benefits of Big Data for economy and governments (the rendez-vous was missed). Our discussion of no less than six recent initiatives, - standalone laws and soft law instruments - is an indication that Europe is embracing Big Data but is seemingly hesitant to confront Big Data within the classical paradigm (field) of data protection law. Concrete guidance for Big Data practices is now spread over multiple texts emanating outside the data protection field. Keywords: Big Data, Data Protection, European Commission, Institutional Actors There is no sense in studying ideas as if they floated in a kind of intellectual heaven, with no reference to the agents who produce them or, above all, to the conditions in which these agents produce them, that is, in particular to the relations of competition in which they stand towards one another.

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