The Rise of the Personal Data Quality Principle. Is it Legal and Does it Have an Impact on the Right to Rectification?
27 Pages Posted: 22 Mar 2021 Last revised: 21 Jan 2022
Date Written: February 10, 2021
Abstract
EU data protection law anchors the principle of data accuracy and connects it to the right to rectification. Both provisions have remained underexplored in literature, leaving a signifi-cant academic gap. In the present paper I will argue that there is a tendency to replace ‘data accuracy’ with ‘data quality,’ which seems to subsume and go beyond classical accuracy elements, i.e. it is broader than accuracy. It also includes requirements on the quality of pro-cessing, not simply on the data pieces. Elements of data quality, as derived from non-legal disciplines, could be traced to different principles of EU data protection law. As a result, the scope of the right to rectification could be broader than it is currently argued to be and could give rise to a broader range of legitimate claims by data subjects.
Keywords: data quality, data accuracy, right to rectification, data protection, computer science
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