Law and Electronic Communications

Learning Outcomes

Within the framework of the course, students will be able to:

• Demonstrate critical understanding of the integration of digital technologies in both traditional and contemporary legal fields.
• Understand the legal challenges arising from the rapid dissemination of information and communication technologies.
• Possess the ability to identify and understand rights related to the consolidation of new technologies, such as rights related to the information society, personal data protection, and communication confidentiality.
• Adequately identify new sources of endangering and restricting rights.
• Have an increased critical awareness in shaping appropriate methods of balancing the protection of digital rights and the goals of public interest.
• Possess state-of-the-art specialized scientific knowledge in the subjects of the course as a basis for original thinking and research activities.

Syllabus

• Historical overview and genealogy of the right to communication protection – national and supranational regulatory foundations – the need for communication protection in the poetry of Homer, Akhmatova, Dickinson, and in the narratives of Chekhov and Kafka.
• Personal data in electronic communications – the information society, new rights, and limitations.
• Regulatory framework of electronic communications in EU and national law – basic principles, rights, limitations.
• Protection of the right to privacy: national Constitutions, European Convention on Human Rights, Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union – regulatory determination of the right under the dialectics of multi-level constitutionalism.
• Communication privacy from the early Greek Constitutions to the celebratory affirmation in the post-dictatorship Constitution of 1975: autonomous safeguarding and historical contexts – comparative analogies in the European constitutions of the 20th century.
• The “absolute” protection and institutional guarantees for the right in Article 19 of the Greek Constitution – limitations of the right for reasons of national security and specific serious crimes.
• The procedure for lifting confidentiality – competent authority, documentation of the request, duration of the measure, supervision of the process, judicial protection – uniform procedure or distinct categories of confidentiality (journalistic, medical, legal, etc.) – critical approach to the existing framework.
• Eavesdropping in terms of the scope of communication privacy: from the opinions of prosecutors G. Sanidas, I. Ntogiakos, and the decision of the Council of State 1593/2016 to the espionage software of the 21st century.
• The jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights as a reference framework for the effective protection of the right – dynamic interpretation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights: delimitation of the scope, criteria of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
• The difficult balancing of the ECtHR: the concept of lawful interest in matters of privacy protection, the need for ex ante and ex post supervision of the process of imposing restrictions, adherence to the necessary measure within the democratic state.
• Data retention: the protection of metadata communication as a critical dimension of the right – the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the constitutional patriotism of national courts.
• Mass or strategic surveillance as a limit to the concept of lawful restriction – ECtHR jurisprudence: from Weber and Saravia to Big Brother Watch (I and II) – basic principles and criteria – reasoned utilization or reversal of the rule-exception relationship?
• Awaiting e-privacy: basic principles, scope, difficult balancing – overall assessment of the current situation regarding the protection of personal data in the field of electronic communications.