Privacy and data protection in universities: recent ECJ and ECtHR rulings

Privacy and data protection are different legal concepts, derived from different legal instruments, applied by different courts at European level. But the two concepts often overlap, and the relevant courts (the European Court of Justice (ECJ), interpreting the EU data protection Directive and other relevant EU laws, and the European Court of Human Rights, interpreting the right to privacy in the ECHR) sometimes make reference to the other’s case law and legal texts.

In November and December 2017, each court gave a ruling on the respective rights in the context of universities or other academic institutions. The author writes that this was a good opportunity to contrast the two courts’ different approaches in comparable cases, and to draw broader conclusions about the importance of these rights in the context of education.

• Primary Source

ECJ: Press Release, No.140, 2017 (20.12.17): Judgment in Case C - 434/16 Peter Nowak v Data Protection Commissioner https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2017-12/cp170140en.pdf

ECHR: Judgement in ECHR Application no. 70838/13 Antovic and Mirkovic v Montenegro, 28.11.17 http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-178904

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