News and Research articles on European Court of Justice (ECJ)

Data subjects as data controllers: a Fashion(able) concept?

Lilian Edwards, Newcastle University
Michèle Finck, Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition
Michael Veale, University College London
Nicolo Zingales, Tilburg University

PUBLISHED ON: 13 Jun 2019

Recent case-law of the European Court of Justice has substantially widened the notion of “data controller" in unclear and potentially onerous ways for a range of actors involved in personal data processing. This has worrying implications for data subjects who may be characterised as controllers, and for emergent decentralised and privacy protective technologies.

The countering of terrorism propaganda online, through private companies, may little by little kill our right to freedom of expression.

Not just one, but many ‘Rights to be Forgotten’

Geert Van Calster, KU Leuven
Alejandro Gonzalez Arreaza, KU Leuven
Elsemiek Apers, Conseil International du Notariat Belge
PUBLISHED ON: 15 May 2018 DOI: 10.14763/2018.2.794

Since being first developed through the case law of the European Court of Justice, the Right to be Forgotten (RTBF) has rapidly diffused beyond its European origins: in Latin America for instance. This paper documents the wide spectrum of interpretations the RTBF has had across countries and data protection authorities.

The passage of Australia’s data retention regime: national security, human rights, and media scrutiny

Nicolas P. Suzor, Queensland University of Technology
Kylie Pappalardo, Queensland University of Technology
Natalie McIntosh, Queensland University of Technology
PUBLISHED ON: 14 Mar 2017 DOI: 10.14763/2017.1.454

This paper is part of Australian internet policy, a special issue of Internet Policy Review guest-edited by Angela Daly and Julian Thomas. Part I: The Data Retention Act In April 2015, the Australian government passed the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Act, which requires Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and telecommunications providers to store information about their subscribers’ online activity for a period of two years. The data retention rules apply to metadata – loosely defined as information that is not the 'content' of a communication. Generally, service providers must keep identifying information about their subscribers, including billing …

Max Schrems' boomerang hits Europe

Monika Ermert, Heise, Intellectual Property Watch, VDI-Nachrichten

PUBLISHED ON: 7 Oct 2015

The Safe Harbour Agreement between the EU and the US has been under fire for years. A landmark judgement by the European Court of Justice on 6 October not only invalidates the agreement. It boomerangs back to Europe in big ways.

The so-called right to be forgotten needs to be discussed a little more. Google has received 70,000 requests for takedowns of search results since the decision of the European Court of Justice in May 2014. Now the company gets support from an unexpected place: a German constitutional judge warns against potential dangers of the decision.

The European Union’s Court of Justice has ruled against Google in a case in which a Spanish citizen, backed by his national data protection authority, wanted the company to remove search links to an old local newspaper story related to his bankruptcy. Jef Ausloos argues that implications should not be too extreme, but warns of the Court’s prioritising of data subjects over internet users.