For many years, the topic of data protection has increased in social and political significance: “Bundestrojaner”, an extended capacity for intelligence services and authorities, as well as the much-discussed data retention both prompt fears of a surveillance state which compromises the privacy of citizens.
Against the backdrop of this debate conducted in media and society, the PhD project aims to answer the question of the “rootedness” of the data protection law – not in a legal-historical way, but with regard to the circumstances which impinge on the law in this area. Which data are relevant at all? Is the idea of personal data the central “barrier” which has to be overcome in order to subject the information to the legal regime? Do other characteristics of the factual circumstances exist, which have to count as the “threshold for registration”, e.g. the location of storage? These questions will have to be answered according to international, and national law and that of the EU.
