Legal paternalism’s influence on the balancing data protection and fundamental rights

This article explored how the General Data Protection Regulation, seen as an element of the regime of European regulatory private law, reflects both soft and hard forms of legal paternalism. Employing a doctrinal methodology, this research analysed relevant EU law and the CJEU’s jurisprudence in order to examine how the regulation of the right to personal data protection in the European Union’s legal order is informed by soft and hard types of legal paternalism. The findings reveal that the General Data Protection Regulation imposes strict obligations on data processors, highlighting a hard paternalistic approach because compliance with such obligations, by implication, limits data subjects’ autonomy. Soft paternalism, on the other hand, can be seen in EU lawmakers’ attempts to nudge data subjects into using their data carefully and reasonably in digital environments without heavily restricting their data autonomy. This approach raises concerns about the proportionality of restrictions on other fundamental rights, as hard paternalism of the European Union’s primary law in this field is strongly reflected in the jurisprudence of the Luxembourg Court that prioritises data protection over competing public interests. A possible way to address this issue is recalibration towards soft paternalism to enhance data subjects’ autonomy and improve the balance between privacy and other rights. Such a shift could lead to more context- sensitive rulings emphasising the importance of protection of other human rights