To Protect Lives or Personal Data?

Sammanfattning: The adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation proclaimed Europe’s stance on the significance of the right to data privacy today whereas digital technologies have prevailed all around the globe and all spheres of our lives. Digitalization is thus a phenomenon that has ever since drawn attention from leaders and policymakers which why the Regulation along with other European privacy regimes are established with the aim to govern such technologies. Such digital guidance offered by these frameworks ultimately play a key role in overcoming crises and more complex privacy challenges, and it will most particularly indicate the future of our data. This thesis thereby looks into how data protection is impacted by two ongoing events, namely the Coronavirus crisis and accelerated digitalization, in order to answer the question of whether the European privacy regimes are capable of accomplishing its objectives, addressing privacy issues, and whether these hinder the use of digital tools to support efforts against the COVID-19. This thesis finds that COVID-19 together with accelerated digitalization have opened an essential debate on the current data protection policies. Correspondingly, the EU and other privacy advocates have highlighted that whilst these two events are both unfamiliar territories, current data protection rules were established for that same reason, which is to prepare Europe for potential privacy challenges. Hence, the European privacy regime is exhibiting capability and flexibility to address these. In the same manner, to perceive data protection as a barrier to digital developments and COVID-19 measures is to a point erroneous because data protection authorities are reassuring through its guidelines and directives that such rules complement these kinds of situations and are set up to avoid harmful consequences of processing personal data, especially health data. The enhanced obligations such a regime imposes guarantees that organisations and agencies remain responsible in its use of digital technologies to support the battle against the COVID-19. This thesis thereby determines that the current European privacy regime remains steadfast despite such stumbling blocks. This also conveys that although COVID-19 and accelerated digitalization have demonstrated that the right to privacy is not absolute and should hence have be considered together with the public’s interest and common good, it also reveals that data protection shall all the more be preserved not only to ensure compliance or overcome privacy issues but most particularly to secure the safety of our digital future.