Protection of Personal Data in Social Media (Comparative Analysis)

• Main Author: ألفة المنصوري
• Format: Article
• Language: Arabic
• Published: Qatar University Press 2021-05-01
• Series: International Review of Law
• Subjects: Personal data; Social Media; Legislative and judicial protection; Conditional treating of personal data; Threatened protection by other rights; Difficulty in determining the applicable law to the conflict
• Online Access: https://185.37.108.12/index.php/IRL/article/view/1818

The digital community threatens the illegal treatment of personal data, via social media, that is enabled, thanks to the development of digital technologies, which ensures the rapid circulation of data, such as text or images. However, this treatment requires constitutional, legislative and judicial protection, because it is considered an attack on private life, which does not eliminate the possibility of conditional treatment with the consent of the data owner, and by respecting the obligations of dignity and humanity. This protection comes under threat when a conflict occurs, that needs to find a balance with other fundamental rights, like freedom of expression and the press. However, the real difficulty is how to determine who is responsible for the damage due to the multiplicity of internet's interlocutors, technical intermediaries, access providers and content provider, the primary responsible for the disclosure of information. The situation is even more complicated, due to the difficulty of determining the applicable law, related to the global aspect of internet sites, as they are outside the limits of each country’s sovereignty, which can induce us in the “dark net” where no law applies. Hence, digitization challenges could be faced by concluding an international agreement, such as the European rule of 2018, as well as adopting the soft law, for it represents mechanisms and directives more than laws, with a preventive effect, in a world that could not be governed by a law with classic aspects.