From Data Minimization to Data Minimummization - Discrimination and Privacy in the Information Society - page 265

Even more relevant in relation to knowledge discovery in databases is the right
to data protection. The European Data Protection Directive, the most important text
in this respect, is applicable when personal data 6 are being processed (entailing
both the gathering, processing, use and dissemination of data) 7 and spells out sev-
eral obligations for the so called 'data controller', who determines the purpose and
means of processing, 8 in relation to the 'data subject', the one to which the data re-
fer. The directive distinguishes between non-sensitive personal data, with which a
person may be identified either directly or indirectly, and sensitive data, relating to
information concerning race, ethnicity, political, religious and philosophical be-
lieves, trade-union membership and data concerning health and sex life with which
a person may be either directly or indirectly identified. 9 The requirements for proc-
essing sensitive personal data are stricter then for non-sensitive data.
One of the core doctrines in the directive is that of 'informed consent'. The data
controller has certain transparency obligations, 10 correlating with the information
rights of the data subject, 11 which relate to information regarding the identity of
the data controller, the data processed by him and the purposes for which this is
done. Furthermore, the directive requires a legitimate purpose for the data
processing, the most prominent possibility being the consent of the data subject; 12
subsequently, the data subject has the ability to object to the processing of his da-
ta 13 and to request the erasure or blocking of his personal data. 14 The concept of
'informed consent', relating to the consent or objection to data processing on the
basis of adequate and complete information, 15 is instrumental in safeguarding the
autonomy of the individual. Besides the doctrine of 'informed consent', two other
important principles figure in the directive. Firstly, the so called privacy enhanc-
ing principles, regarding the security of processing techniques and data minimiza-
tion rules, which will be discussed in the fifth section, and secondly, the quality
principles, relating to the quality of decision making, the quality of the data them-
selves and the quality of data processing, which will be elaborated on in the se-
venth section. Both privacy and data protection problems shall be referred to in
this chapter under the umbrella concept 'privacy problems'. First, the general fun-
daments of anti-discrimination laws will be outlined in the next section.
15.4 Anti-discrimination Legislation
The European legislation regarding discrimination is a bit more scattered. Most im-
portantly, both the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention on
Human Rights contain a general prohibition on the discrimination upon grounds
6 Article 2(a) Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC (hereafter: DPD).
7 Article 2(b) DPD.
8 Article 2(d) DPD.
9 Article 8.1 DPD.
10 Article 10 DPD.
11 Article 12 DPD.
12 Article 7 & 8 DPD.
13 Article 14 DPD.
14 Article 12 DPD.
15 Article 2(h) DPD.