ePrivacy and the Protection of Personal Data in Electronic Communications
Full course description
The course familiarises the students with a highly topical issue of e-Privacy by discussing in details questions related to the e-Privacy Directive and its successor, e-Privacy Regulation. The ePrivacy Directive ensures the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms, in particular the respect for private life, confidentiality of communications and the protection of personal data in the electronic communications sector. It also guarantees the free movement of electronic communications data, equipment and services in the EU. The European legislation is keeping up with the fast space at which IT-based services are developing and evolving by proposing a e-Privacy Regulation. The students will familiarise with the main changes that the e-Privacy Regulation aims to introduce in this scenario, e.g., the more user friendly rules on cookies and tracking technologies; new opportunities for telecoms operators (once consent is given for communications data - content and/or metadata - to be processed, traditional telecoms operators will have more opportunities to provide additional services and to develop their businesses, for example, they could produce heat maps indicating the presence of individuals; these could help public authorities and transport companies when developing new infrastructure projects; bans on unsolicited electronic communications by emails, SMS and automated calling machines; etc.
Assessment methods
70% final exam (individual assessment), 30% case study (group assessment)
Course objectives
In terms of knowledge and insight, after the successful completion of the course students will:
- Be able to understand the legal requirements of the EU’s ePrivacy framework;
- Identify, in a comparative manner, intersections and differences among compliance requirements for ad tech in the EU and in other regions of the world;
- Have the means to apply the specific provisions of the ePrivacy framework in a practical context;
- Be able to critically assess and effectively communicate the compliance requirements of the ePrivacy framework;
- Be able to scrutinize the current legislative action on ePrivacy in relation to issues, including between the interplay of compliance, technology and economic aspects.
Prerequisites
The course further builds and branches out on the knowledge from the previous courses ‘Data Protection Fundamentals’ and ‘Advanced (International) Data Protection and Privacy’. This course relies on the fundamental knowledge with regard to the rights to data protection and to privacy in the EU and expands on this foundation by introducing the EU’s ePrivacy secondary law framework as lex specialis to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. Further, the course introduces the commercial and technological aspects of ad tech and gives a practical overview of the challenges surrounding the current and the proposed legal framework.
Recommended reading
- The e-Privacy Directive (Directive 2002/58/EC, as amended - consolidated version)