COVID-19: Data Subjects – Know Your Rights

Governments, as well as public, private and voluntary organisations around the world, are taking all the necessary steps to avoid the further spread of COVID-19 and in turn attempt to mitigate its effects on the general population.

Such attempts blur the line between the private and non-private life of an individual and also require the processing of special categories of personal data, such as health data. Under normal circumstances, such processing is disallowed, however the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 ('GDPR')  allows for the processing of such data in exceptional circumstances, where it is 'essential for the data subject or that of another natural person' that such data be processed.