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JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH

The three pillars of creation of the Digital Single Market are: 1.
Better access for consumers and businesses to online goods and
services across Europe; 2. Creating the right conditions for
digital networks and services to flourish; 3. Maximizing the
growth potential of our European Digital Economy.
Communication states the term “geo-blocking” which refers to
online practices of the seller and e-shops when the access to
several websites is denied or when the buyer cannot purchase a
product from the webpage based in different Member State due
to the commercial reasons. Geo- blocking question is recently
discussed at the EU level by adopting the regulation on
addressing geo-blocking and other forms of discrimination based
on customer´s nationality, place of residence within the internal
market

. The proposal was currently (December 2017) rejected

by the Parliament. Also, the issue with different VAT is a
question. Commission identifies the key aim of the Digital
Single Market Strategy which is to establish a supportive
investment climate for digital networks, research and innovative
business.

Recent mid – term review on the implementation of the Digital
Single Market Strategy

reviews the current stage of the

establishment of the Digital Single Market. The Digital Single
Market Strategy outlined the path for the EU to build the right
digital environment: one in which a high level of privacy,
protection of personal data and consumer rights are ensured,
businesses can innovate and compete, and cybersecurity
strengthens the fabric that weaves our societies together. Digital
era and its power and role on the future development of the
Europe is also described in the White Paper on “The Future of
Europe”

On Digital Single Market summit in Tallinn in September 2017
was agreed that the Digital Single Market will be completed and
the European Union will follow the strategy.

3 Data Protection as Part of the Digital Single Market

The protection of personal data is a fundamental step to reach the
Digital Single Market which was already taken. The reform of
the data protection rules was adopted. The reform includes
General Data Protection Regulation

which was adopted in

April 2016 and will apply from 25. May 2018 and the
Directive

which has to be transposed by Member States into

their national law by 6 May 2018.

Reform and its aims are well expressed by Commission

that

citizens need guarantees that their personal data will not be used
without their consent, and operators must be able to develop
innovative economic models. The development of new online
services such as behavioral advertising generates fears about the
use and standard of protection of personal data. People affected
by any processing of their personal data must be given clear,
comprehensible information. Reform provided a good balance to
be achieved between encouraging innovation and setting a high
level of user protection.

This uniform legislation at level of European Union replaces the
current divergent national legislation of the Member States of the
Union. In EU the new data protection rules, establishing a
modern and harmonized data protection framework across the
EU were enacted.

(COM(2016) 289

Communication from the Commission to the European parliament, the Council, the

European economic and social committee and the Committee of the regions: on the
Mid-Term Review on the implementation of the Digital Single Market Strategy; A
Connected Digital Single Market for All, (COM(2017) 228)

COM (2017) 2025

Regulation (EU) 2016/679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the

processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data

Directive (EU) 2016/680 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the

processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of the
prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the
execution of criminal penalties, and on the free movement of such data and repealing
Council Framework Decision 2008/977/JHA

(COM(2011) 0942)

European Union calls the reform as the most important change in
data privacy in 20 years. There are more reasons for such a
characteristic. Personal data is specified much broader as any
information relating to an identified or unidentified natural
person.

Firstly, the data protection regulation gives more rights and
intensifies already existing right of people to protect their data
(such as: right to be forgotten

, right to personal data portability,

right to restriction of processing, right to access to personal data,
right to rectification, right to know about the personal data
breach). Principle of transparency is the main principle of the
rights and mostly refers to clear, easy communication and
information of the data subjects. On the other hand, the rights are
creating the new obligations for the data controllers.
Data portability right is completely new right and includes the
right to receive the personal data in a structured, commonly used
and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit those
data to another controller without hindrance from the controller
to which the personal data have been provided. The right
includes the right to direct transfer of the data from one
controller to another. This means that data controllers that
outsource data processing or process data jointly with other
controllers must have clear contractual arrangements to allocate
responsibilities of each party in answering data portability
requests and implement specific procedures in this respect.

The

right consist of a) the right to obtain and reuse personal data for
further personal use (ex. contact list, etc.) b) the right to transmit
personal data from one data controller to another one on request
of the data subject. This right creates indirectly duty for data
controllers not to establish any barriers to the transmission. c)
right to controllership, which means that data controllers
answering a data portability request have no specific obligation
to check and verify the quality of the data before transmitting it.
On the other hand, receiving data controller is responsible for
ensuring that the portable data provided are relevant and not
excessive with regard to the new data processing. Regulation
also provided that data portability based on the regulation shall
be provided without any payment required unless an exception
applies.
A discussion about the right to explanation of decisions made by
automated and artificially intelligent algorithmic systems is
included in the General Data Protection Regulation. The right to
explanation is viewed as a promising mechanism in the broader
pursuit by government and industry for accountability and
transparency in algorithms, artificial intelligence, robotics, and
other automated systems.

Currently there are two opinions

about the existence of the mentioned right.

Secondly, the applicability of the regulation extends its
applicability also outside of EU under specific conditions

. The

regulation also covers the data controllers and processors having
seat outside of the EU while offering goods or services (no
matter if payed or not) and while monitoring of behavior people
inside EU.

Thirdly, the penalties for breaching the rules of the regulation are
serious and the maximum is twenty million Euro. Generally
speaking the penalty model is based on revenue – annual
worldwide turnover of the undertaking as it is already known in
anti-trust law.

See for example Post, R.: Data Privacy and Dignitary Privacy: Google Spain, the

Right to Be Forgotten, and the Construction of the Public Sphere (April 15, 2017).
Duke Law Journal, Forthcoming; Yale Law School, Public Law Research Paper No.
598.

Guidelines on the right to data portability adopted by article 29 Working Party WP

242 rev.01

Wachter, S., Mittlstandt, B., Florini, L.: Why a Right to Explanation of Automated

Decision-Making Does Not Exist in the General Data Protection Regulation, In.:
International Data Privacy Law, Volume 7, Issue 2, 1 May 2017, Pages 76–99,

See also Goodman, B., Flaxman, S.: EU Regulations on Algorithmic Decision-

Making and a “right to Explanation, [2016] available
<http://arxiv.org/abs/1606.08813> accessed 30.12.2017.

This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data in the context of the

activities of an establishment of a controller or a processor in the Union, regardless of
whether the processing takes place in the Union or not. – art.3 of the regulation

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