The Future of EU Data Privacy Law: Towards a More Egalitarian Data Privacy

Abstract

The article addresses the future of European Union (EU) data privacy law and argues for a shift of paradigm, calling for a less technology-driven and more human-centric and societally focused approach. It discusses two case studies — poor people’s data privacy and women’s data privacy — and the recent System for Risk Indication “SyRI” and finds that the mainstream EU data protection narrative has missed out fundamental questions about the socio-economic, gender and intersectional exceptions of EU data protection law. In this regard, the article argues that EU data protection law should be reconstructed to pursue substantive equality goals. It proposes an egalitarian data privacy project guided by methods that bring forward neglected perspectives and narratives. It concludes that only if EU data protection law is attentive to the inequalities that the most vulnerable face, it can remain relevant in the future.

Keywords: EU data protection law, GDPR, privacy, digital welfare state, benefit fraud, SyRI, women’s data privacy, intersectionality, non-discrimination, egalitarian data privacy