Current Data Protection Regulations and Case Law in Greece: Cash as Personal Data, Lengthy Procedures, and Technologies Subjected to Courts’ Interpretations

Abstract

This chapter addresses data protection in Greece. Section 5.1 provides an overview of case law of the Supreme Administrative Court and the Supreme Civil and Criminal Court, but also national laws and the Constitution of Greece. Section 5.2 studies core concepts, such as “control” and “consent”, to detect similarities and differences between the General Data Protection Regulation and Greek law. Section 5.3 examines risks emerging from new technologies to highlight ignorance and confusion with which people may experience their everyday privacy. Section 5.4 addresses data portability as a trust-enhancing tool that could strengthen controllership and promote transparency in the interests of the data subjects. Greek regulations treat the right to the protection of personal data as a fundamental one, while national courts have repeatedly interpreted this right in relation to constitutional principles, under which attention is drawn to the data subject rather than the data processor. However, lengthy administrative and judicial procedures could become an obstacle, while exercising such constitutional rights. Hence, individuals may need to wait for a more-than-a-ten-year-period to get vindicated after severe violations of their sensitive information. Even though the right to the protection of personal data is an aspect of the traditional “offline” right to privacy, today’s digital technologies have also “become subject” to courts’ interpretations. In this chapter, personal data case law is examined, and, simultaneously, references are made to current national laws and the Constitution of Greece. By providing a general image of present-day regulations, this chapter aims to detect ways in which national courts interpret some crucial provisions.