Category: Privacy and Data Protection

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Scientific Research: the Italian Data Protection Commissioner Soro to support a very dangerous position about Biobanks

In an interview published by the Italian newspaper “La Stampa” on Oct. 31, 2017 the Italian Data Protection Commissioner Soro stated that:

“If it is true that a profit can be gained from the research on human biological material, is it true – too – that there is no such thing as biobank ownership, but only the right to research the available samples. 1“

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  1. “Se è vero che si possono ottenere profìtti dalle ricerche sul materiale biologico degli esseri umani, è altrettanto vero non esiste la proprietà di una biobanca, ma solo il diritto a fare studi sui campioni disponibili” – English translation by Andrea Monti. ↩
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GDPR vs CRISPR: the Bureaucracy Against the Science that Saves Human Life

Man Receives First In Vivo Gene-Editing Therapy. This is how The Scientist titles about the news of a man (whose personal data have been made public) affected by Hunter Syndrome that has been treated with a gene-editing technique.

It is much too early to know whether the genetic therapy will work (thus withdrawing the need to pay huge money just to control, and not eliminate, this rare disease). But fact is that scientists did a giant step ahead by treating humans with this method.

Thus it is reasonable to expect that in the very next years many genetic diseases will be finally cured and not just taken under control until the patient dies.

This will happens notwithstanding the GDPR – or, better – notwithstanding the blind madness of the bureaucratic and pedantic interpretation that, in the name of the “protection of fundamental rights” endangers the scientific research and deprive us of the basic right we all deserve to protect: the right to life.

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The Right to Be Forgotten Has Nothing To Do With Privacy

A side effect of ? Fuchmanns vs Germany is ? the (hopefully final) clarification that Right to Be Forgotten has nothing to do with Privacy protection.

Fuchmanns vs Germany, indeed, is an European Court of Human Rights Article 8 (privacy) case, while Right to Be Forgotten is an EU Fundamental Chart Article 7 (personal data protection) right.

Trying to use privacy as a legal basis for the Right to be forgotten is just plain wrong.

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The ECHR to bash the online right to be forgotten

On Oct. 19 the European Court of Human Rights issued the decision of the case 71233/13 – Fuchsmann vs Germany where the Court held that:

No violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case concerned the German courts’ rejection of the request by an internationally active entrepreneur for an injunction against ? certain statements about him in an article published in the online edition of the New York Times.

The Court found that the German courts had struck a reasonable balance between the applicant’s right to respect for his private life under Article 8 and the newspaper’s right to freedom of expression guaranteed by Article 10 of the Convention. They had taken into consideration, in particular: that there had been a public interest in the alleged involvement of the applicant, a German businessman, in embezzlement and organised crime; that there had been a sufficient factual basis for the statements at issue; and that the article – which concerned mainly his professional life – was free from polemic statements and insinuations.

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