The Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Aims of EU Competition Law and Data Protection: Time to Level the Playing Field
Divin De Buffalo Irakiza
Citation: [2021] Sing JLS 39
The proliferation of data-driven markets continues to raise questions about their implications for_x000D_
the right to data protection. A recent suggestion is that EU competition law can and should be used to address data protection concerns in the age of big data. However, the European Commission is reluctant to consider data protection issues in EU competition law, maintaining instead that competition law is not the right tool to promote the right to data protection. Yet, following the Treaty of Lisbon, data protection is a fundamental right under Article 16 of the TFEU as well as Article 8 of the Charter. Therefore, considering that the EU is under a duty to promote fundamental rights by virtue of Article 51 of the Charter, this paper argues that data protection should be among the objectives of EU competition law.