Privacy and Data Protection Law

6 ECTS credits
150 h study time

Offer 1 with catalog number 4023296EER for all students in the 1st semester at a (E) Master - advanced level.

Semester

1st semester

Enrollment based on exam contract

Possible

Grading method

Grading (scale from 0 to 20)

Can retake in second session

Yes

Taught in

English

Faculty

Faculty of Law and Criminology

Department

Metajuridica

Educational team

Gloria Gonzalez Fuster (course titular)

Activities and contact hours

36 contact hours Lecture
100 contact hours Independent or External Form of Study

Course Content

Privacy and data protection law are increasingly crucial in our data-driven societies. Understanding the basic notions and premises in which they are grounded is not only a major asset for all law students, but also an open door to multiple professional and academic endeavours, ranging from working as a data protection officer (DPO) to being able to think of future-proof legal solutions to reconcile the market’s and public authorities’ appetite for personal data with individual rights and freedoms, from advising to private companies, to ensuring compliance in the public sector.

The course Privacy and Data Protection Law, to be taught in English, will introduce students to the core legal issues in this area in a way that allows them to better understand both current compliance requirements and upcoming privacy and data protection legal challenges. It will provide them with a general view of different global and regional approaches to privacy law, focusing on the European Union (EU) legal framework. The study of EU law will be developed through the analysis of both legislation and relevant case-law.

The course will offer students all basic necessary knowledge to be introduced to privacy and data protection law and familiarise them with all its multiple and distinct dimensions, from the prisms of EU law and taking into account the global context in which EU law operates.

Course material

Digital course material (Required) : Handboek over Europese gegevensbeschermingswetgeving, 2018

Additional info

All students will be given the opportunity to learn about privacy and data protection law by applying it in practical exercises.

Lectures might be followed either in the classroom or remotely.

Learning Outcomes

Algemene competenties

The course aims to equip students with:

Fundamental knowledge on international and European privacy and data protection law;
An understanding of the significance of privacy and data protection from an historical perspective, but also socially and politically, in relation to the functioning of constitutional democratic states, and in light of current and upcoming technological developments;
A comparative overview of global and regional approaches, encompassing their convergence and divergences between them, and their impact on, and challenges for, international data flows:
A comprehensive perception of the way in which privacy and data protection are relevant for a variety of industrial sectors and policy areas;
A clear picture of the EU legal framework on privacy and data protection law;
A detailed grasp of the roles, responsibilities and rights of the major actors of data protection law: data controllers and processors, data subjects, and Data Protection Authorities (DPAS), as well as the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) and the European Data Protection Board (EDPB);
Knowledge on the prerequisites, tasks and functions of Data Protection Officers (DPOs);
The capacity to argue and counter-argue in a solid way in relation to the way in which privacy and data protection intersect with other rights and interests, and contextualise policy making in this field;
A vision of future privacy and data protection law challenges in an increasingly data-driven changing world;
Better skills to become future-proof lawyers and legal scholars, but also citizens.

Grading

The final grade is composed based on the following categories:
Written Exam determines 100% of the final mark.

Within the Written Exam category, the following assignments need to be completed:

Written Exam with a relative weight of 100 which comprises 100% of the final mark.

Additional info regarding evaluation

The final evaluation shall consist of a written exam, in which will be combined short, to-the-point questions (primarily assessing knowledge and clarity of exposition) and an essay-like open question (primarily assessing the capacity to critically connect learnt input, and build upon such knowledge to construct a solid argumentation). In the essay-like open question, students will also have the opportunity to build on the knowledge gathered during the practical exercises.

Allowed unsatisfactory mark

The supplementary Teaching and Examination Regulations of your faculty stipulate whether an allowed unsatisfactory mark for this programme unit is permitted.

Academic context