Personal data for decisional purposes in the age of analytics: From an individual to a collective dimension of data protection

In the big data era, new technologies and powerful analytics make it possible to collect and analyse large amounts of data in order to identify patterns in the behaviour of groups, communities and even entire countries. Existing case law and regulations are inadequate to address the potential risks and issues related to this change of paradigm in social investigation. This is due to the fact that both the right to privacy and the more recent right to data protection are protected as individual rights. The social dimension of these rights has been taken into account by courts and policymakers in various countries. Nevertheless, the rights holder has always been the data subject and the rights related to informational privacy have mainly been exercised by individuals. This atomistic approach shows its limits in the existing context of mass predictive analysis, where the larger scale of data processing and the deeper analysis of information make it necessary to consider another layer, which is different from individual rights. This new layer is represented by the collective dimension of data protection, which protects groups of persons from the potential harms of discriminatory and invasive forms of data processing. On the basis of the distinction between individual, group and collective dimensions of privacy and data protection, the author outlines the main elements that characterise the collective dimension of these rights and the representation of the underlying interests.

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