Yksityisyyttä yli kuoleman
Keywords:
EU-oikeus, Euroopan ihmisoikeussopimus, yksityiselämän suoja, henkilötietojen suoja, kuolleiden oikeudet, relationaalinen yksityisyysAbstract
Privacy beyond death
The article discusses post-mortem privacy in the context of European privacy and data protection law. The expansion of the volume and availability of personal data, especially in the digital environment, has been accompanied by increasing demands for privacy beyond death. In the article, such demands are identified as an expression of posthumous identity concerns, ultimately as a claim to a posthumous right to selective self-presentation. However, these claims are in conflict with the European rights-based systems of privacy protection, which do not recognise people who are deceased as subjects of fundamental and human rights. In the article, three mechanisms of posthumous privacy protection, based on different types of relational approaches to privacy, are identified in ECHR case law and EU data protection law. The author argues that behind each of these European arrangements lies an unresolved tension between the dead and the living. Post-mortem privacy is always conditional on the action of the living and can also be used to undermine the deceased’s right to identity protection.
