The expanding notion of special categories of data and its limits

Building on Solove's warnings on the uselessness of the notion of special categories of data, this article examines the expansion of the concept in the CJEU jurisprudence to assess if, indeed, it has become futile in the EU context. Our research explores how the concept has been expanded to inf...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Capellà Ricart, Anna|||0000-0002-9898-8242, Roig Batalla, Antoni|||0000-0002-4760-9361
Format: article
Publication Date:2025
Country:España
Institution:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repository:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:dnet:uabarcelona_::19d682ec15b30e7a1e9cc5a021d2a12d
Online Access:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/328427
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.57230/EJPLT252ACRARB
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Data of special categories
GDPR
Inference
Big data
Expansion
Description
Summary:Building on Solove's warnings on the uselessness of the notion of special categories of data, this article examines the expansion of the concept in the CJEU jurisprudence to assess if, indeed, it has become futile in the EU context. Our research explores how the concept has been expanded to inference, its specific application in the context of the right to be forgotten, and its role in social networks and competition law. We highlight that the current understanding of data of special categories presents limitations in terms of providing an effective protection in the field of big data analytics and we theorise on the suitability of shifting from an exhaustive list of data categories to a more general risk-based approach.