S. Kulk

Data protection legislation: A very hungry caterpillar: The case of mapping data in the European Union

The European Unions policy on open data aims at generating value through re-use of public sector information, such as mapping data. Open data policies should be applied in full compliance with the principles relating to the protection of personal data of the EU Data Protection Directive. Increased computer power, advancing data mining techniques and the increasing amount of publicly available big data extend the reach of the EU Data Protection Directive to much more data than currently assumed and acted upon. Especially mapping data are a key factor to identify individual data subjects and consequently subject to the EU Data Protection Directive and the recently approved EU General Data Protection Regulation. This could in effect obstruct the implementation of open data policies in the EU. The very hungry data protection legislation results in a need to rethink either the concept of personal data or the conditions for use of mapping data that are considered personal data.

Google Spain v. González: Did the Court Forget About Freedom of Expression?

In this note we discuss the controversial judgment in Google Spain v. Gonzalez of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Our focus is on the judgment’s implications for freedom of expression. First, the facts of the case and the CJEU’s judgment are summarised. We then argue that the CJEU did not give enough attention to the right to freedom of expression. By seeing a search engine operator as a controller regarding the processing of personal data on third party web pages, the CJEU assigns the operator the delicate task of balancing the fundamental rights at stake. However, such an operator may not be the most appropriate party to balance the rights of all involved parties, in particular in cases where such a balance is hard to strike. Furthermore, it is a departure from human rights doctrine that according to the CJEU privacy and data protection rights override, “as a rule”, the public’s right to receive information. In addition, after the judgement it has become unclear whether search engine operators have a legal basis for indexing websites that contain special categories of data. We also discuss steps taken by Google to comply with the judgment.

Freedom of Expression and ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Cases in the Netherlands after Google Spain

Since the Google Spain judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Europeans have, under certain conditions, the right to have search results for their name delisted. This paper examines how the Google Spain judgment has been applied in the Netherlands. Since the Google Spain judgment, Dutch courts have decided on two cases regarding delisting requests. In both cases, the Dutch courts considered freedom of expression aspects of delisting more thoroughly than the Court of Justice. However, the effect of the Google Spain judgment on freedom of expression is difficult to assess, as search engine operators decide about most delisting requests without disclosing much about their decisions.