E-Government, transparency and personal data protection.: A new analysis' approach to an old juridical issue

Abstract

In recent years, many governments increased transparency, publicity and free access in their activities. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are seen as a powerful tool to reduce “public diseases” such as low citizen trust, bad performance, low accountability and corruption. While some of these efforts have received a considerable attention, the balance between the value of transparency and the necessity of protecting individual’s personal rights has not been widely considered. It is an obvious fact that administrative records and documents may contain personal data, so it has become necessary to guarantee citizens’ privacy and respect the principles set forth in the European legislation. Information can indeed become more damaging if spread on the web rather than through conventional channels. Therefore, personal identity has to be protected through the removal of information which it is no longer necessary to process.

In this scenario, the present work analyses the main measures public administrative bodies are required to implement, regardless of the purposes for which the information is posted online.

The analysis conducted will be a scholar reflection based on Directive 95/46/EC and recent “Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament ad of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation)”. The paper will introduce a perspective concerning three different topics, namely the right to personal data protection, the data quality and the principle of proportionality. The road map will be as follows: to clarify the notion of data quality, to analyze the link between this principle and the value of transparency of public administrative activities and finally to introduce the dimension of the protection of personal data as a relative and not as an absolute right.