The Evolution of European Data Law

Abstract

This new chapter for Paul Craig and Gráinne de Búrca’s Evolution of EU Law conceptualizes European data law as an area of EU law that gravitates around but transcends data protection law. It traces the origins of the GDPR and stresses the significance of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights and the role of data protection institutions. It then contrasts the law on personal data with the law on non-personal data and scrutinizes two other domains of European data law that intersect with data protection law: data ownership laws and access to data laws. It shows how European data protection law has been globally diffused through extraterritorial application, conditionalities for transfers of personal data, international agreements, and the ‘Brussels Effect’.