The development of a new european public policy on privacy as a precondition for its comprehensive guarantee

Abstract

Recent legislation on data protection, as well as the case law of the European Court of Justice on the issue and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights on the right to privacy, reinforce the idea of the existence an European public policy separate from the internal and international public policy of each Member State. In this sense, a Community strategy and a new European public policy has been shaping around the concept of intimate and family life and, in particular, the concept of privacy itself. The scope and meaning of privacy differs from the conceptualisation of these elements in the legal doctrine and the case law of the Member States.