Digital Trust: ePrivacy and the Protection of Personal Data in Electronic Communications

Full course description

The course familiarises the students with a highly topical issue of e-Privacy by discussing in details questions related to the e-Privacy Directive and its successor, e-Privacy Regulation. The ePrivacy Directive ensures the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms, in particular the respect for private life, confidentiality of communications and the protection of personal data in the electronic communications sector. It also guarantees the free movement of electronic communications data, equipment and services in the EU. The European legislation is keeping up with the fast space at which IT-based services are developing and evolving by proposing a e-Privacy Regulation. The students will familiarise with the main changes that the e-Privacy Regulation aims to introduce in this scenario, e.g., the more user friendly rules on cookies and tracking technologies; new opportunities for telecoms operators (once consent is given for communications data - content and/or metadata - to be processed, traditional telecoms operators will have more opportunities to provide additionalservices and to develop their businesses, for example, they could produce heat maps indicating the presence of individuals; these could help public authorities and transport companies when developing new infrastructure projects; bans on unsolicited electronic communications by emails, SMS and automated calling machines; etc.