Conceptions of Data Protection and Privacy

Conference at the Max Planck Institute

July 15, 2024

On July 11 and 12, a conference on the Conceptions of Data Protection and Privacy took place in Freiburg.

In recent years, transatlantic relations have seen repeated clashes over data protection issues, including the Court of Justice of the European Union openly judging the level of data protection in the United States to be inadequate. Conversely, the United States often considers European and, in particular, German data protection concerns exaggerated and harmful to technological innovation, security and economic growth.

At the heart of these disputes lie different conceptualizations – rooted in legal theory and philosophy – that see privacy and data protection through many different lenses.

But not only data protection and privacy as such are interpreted in many different ways. Views also diverge on the relationship between them. Are they two distinct rights? Are there partial overlaps? Is one a mere specification of the other? And are privacy and data protection negative rights that require mere non-interference by the state, or positive rights whose realization presupposes positive intervention by public powers?

These and other aspects were discussed at the conference with the aim of exploring the complexities of privacy and data protection in order to gain a better understanding of the issues at stake in legal policy disputes.

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