A meaningful legal response would be the establishment of global privacy standards – a ‘new universal law on surveillance’. Undoubtedly, EU law and case law could provide a guiding light.
The increase in the flows of asylum seekers towards the European Union in recent years has re-awakened the discussion over the meaning of European solidarity.
Civil society and the judiciary slowly but steadily brought gains to the protection of privacy after 9/11 that political responses to the Paris attacks and the refugee flows in 2015 and 2016 could just sweep aside. How does the relationship between surveillance and privacy currently stand?
European courts have interpreted privacy in a holistic manner, addressing not only the challenges of mass surveillance to data protection and the right to a private life, but also defending privacy as vital to the relationship of trust between the individual and the state in any democracy.
