The right to privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights and legality of epidemiological monitoring measures to combat the Covid-19 virus pandemic

Abstract

In this paper, the author analyzes the protection of the right to privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) at the time of the Covid-19 virus pandemic. At the beginning of the pandemic, European countries had a large number of infected people and some countries encountered a collapse of their health systems. As the situation was beyond control, it raises the question whether such a situation was caused by the non-implementation of epidemiological monitoring measures, which is comparable to the extent and manner of implementing these measures in the Far East; namely, the question is whether the democratic system remained unprotected due to the EU countries' observance of democratic human rights standards, specifically the right to privacy. Given that epidemiological monitoring measures are currently the most important instrument for combating the Covid-19 virus pandemic, European countries have to fulfill the condition of legality in implementing these measures, which interfere with the citizens' right to privacy. In that context, the author explores the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which ensures judicial protection of the rights guaranteed by the Convention (including the right to private life), focuses on the definition of the concept of the right to privacy, and examines whether epidemiological monitoring measures fall into the corpus of privacy rights. Relying on a detailed analysis of the ECtHR case law, the author points to the specific requirements that must be met in order for the epidemiological monitoring measures to be considered legal.

Keywords

• right to privacy
• legality of epidemiological monitoring measures
• covid-19
• european convention on human rights
• european court of human rights