CIPIL Seminar: 'The Consolidation of Personal Datasets: From Data Protection to Data Plurality'

Location: B16, Faculty of Law
Speaker: Dr. Orla Lynskey, London School of Economics

Abstract: EU Data Protection law does not explicitly differentiate between data processing by small or large entities, nor does its application differentiate between small or large-scale data processing. The inclusion of data processing by private individuals within the scope of application of data protection law gives the impression that the scale of personal data processing is irrelevant for the purposes of data protection law. Yet, in Google Spain the CJEU emphasised Google’s ubiquity, in terms of both the quantity of personal data processed and its reach, in order to justify its differentiation between data processing by Google and by original publishers. Therefore, size and scale matter for personal data protection.

This paper seeks to assess the implications of personal data consolidation. To this end, it shall identify the potential fundamental rights implications of market consolidation in the online environment as well as the claimed efficiencies generated by such consolidation. It shall then, secondly, examine whether there are particular features of the data processing industry that would support the claim that ex ante merger reviews should incorporate data protection and privacy concerns. Of particular interest here is the claim that personal data is distinct as, unlike other ‘commodities’, its aggregation renders it more valuable yet more privacy invasive. In conducting this analysis, a comparison will be made with the media plurality/diversity considerations that are taken into account when assessing mergers in traditional media markets. It will ask whether it is legally feasible and normatively desirable to introduce ‘data plurality’ as a standard to guide future merger assessment or regulatory activity. In so doing, this new project will build on previous work on emerging markets in personal data, the dual economic and dignitary aspects of personal data and the potential intersection between data protection and competition law.

Orla Lynskey has been an Assistant Professor at the London School of Economics since September 2012. She teaches and conducts research in the areas of data protection, technology regulation, digital rights and EU law. She holds an LLB (Law and French) from Trinity College Dublin, an LLM in EU Law from the College of Europe (Bruges) and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. This PhD research has been developed into a monograph, The Foundations of EU Data Protection Law, published by OUP in 2015. She is called to the Bar of England and Wales and working in Competition law practice in Brussels before beginning her doctoral research. She is an editor of International Data Privacy Law (OUP) and the European Law Blog, and is a member of the Editorial Board of the European Data Protection Law Review.