'Privacy by Design' in EU Law Matching Privacy Protection Goals with the Essence of the Rights to Private Life and Data Protection

摘要

In this paper I tackle the question, currently unaddressed in the literature, of how to reconcile the technical understanding of 'privacy by design' with the nature of 'privacy' in EU law. There, 'privacy' splits into two constitutionally protected rights- respect for private and family life, and protection of personal data- whose essence cannot be violated. After illustrating the technical notion of privacy protection goals and design strategies, developed in the privacy threat modelling literature, I propose a method to identify the essence of the two rights, which rests on identifying first the rights' 'attributes'. I answer the research question by linking the technical notion of privacy protection goals and strategies with the attributes and related 'essence' of the rights to private life and to the protection of personal data. The analysis unveils the need to adjust and further develop privacy protection goals. It also unveils that establishing equivalences between technical and legal approaches to the two rights bears positive effects beyond PbD.