ACCESS TO OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS IN THE LIGHT OF THE GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATION

Abstract

Public access and data protection are both fundamental rights provided for in a wide range of legislation at the national Romanian level and European level. Usually, there is no hierarchical order and no clashes between the two rights. Still, given that the purpose of the right to access to official public documents is to foster access to all documents, whereas the Data Protection Regulation must guarantee the protection of personal data, a tension can arise in some cases. We try in our paper to analyze how these two rights have intertwined before the GDPR and will continue to cross paths after this entered into force. The study uses the logical method, analyzes the legal provisions, as well as the solutions derived from the judicial practice. The conclusions aim at unrevealing some pointers for good practice in the public administration.

Keywords

• GDPR
• personal data
• public authority
• public information
• official documents