Читать книгу Privacy and Data Protection based on the GDPR - Leo Besemer - Страница 10

In this first part of the book we look into the history of privacy and data protection law. The need for privacy has increased tremendously over the past century, fueled by advancements in technology that offer ever more opportunities to collect information about individuals. The concept of privacy as a fundamental right was only established after, and undoubtedly also as a result of, the Second World War. Chapter 1 describes how the right to privacy was incorporated in treaties and later in law, and how this ultimately led to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which is applicable law in the EU and the Member States of the European Economic Area.

We then move on to the context in which the GDPR interacts with other European law and with national law in the Member States. We sometimes tend to forget how much legislative power we have given to the EU. Based on the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), however, the GDPR as a European regulation not only interacts with national law, it supersedes it.

The GDPR is very important for anyone who processes personal data on European residents in any way, but the scope of the law is not unlimited. That is what the rest of Chapter 1 is devoted to. Questions like “can we still send season’s greetings” and “what about the rowing club’s list of members” are answered there.