Faisal on Journalistic Exemption in the Context of Criminal Conviction and Offenses Data Under the European Data Protection Laws @helsinkiuni

Kamrul Faisal, University of Helsinki, Journalistic Exemption in the Context of Criminal Conviction and Offenses Data Under the European Data Protection Laws. Here is the abstract.

News portals, social media, and other forums often publish criminal conviction and offenses information that may include personal information related to social position, work history, education, family data, etc. about individuals. Communicating information to the public is important for forming public opinions in every democracy, which is protected by the right to freedom of expression (RtFE). Nevertheless, such information may cause unlawful privacy harms to the data subjects, e.g. it may serve as an open-source intelligence that might lead to discrimination in getting a job and insurance, damaging the reputation, etc. In such situations, the Member States must be able to balance the privacy and publicity rights in question. While exercising the discretion of balancing, Member States provided exemptions differently, which led to the disharmonization of the European data protection laws.This paper aims to outline a harmonized balancing model between two competing fundamental human rights — the right to protect personal data (RtPPD) and the RtFE in the context of criminal conviction and offenses data. Article 85 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) allows the processing of such data for journalistic purposes until it is barred by data subjects’ privacy rights.This study found a harmonized approach to reconciling/balancing both rights within the European data protection laws. This study, first, identified that any processing purpose may qualify as journalistic purposes if that serves the general interest of the public, and the processing is strictly necessary. Second, this study outlined a model that can be used to harmonize the reconciling mechanism.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.