This panels aims to explore the increasing role of ethics in European privacy and data protection, which is not an isolated occurrence but rather part of a much larger phenomenon that can be referred to as the ‘ethification’ of policies and regulation. We wish to bring together experts from different fields to dig into the effects of this growing and transformative phenomenon, with a focus upon its expressions in the GPDR, the recent interventions and initiatives of the European Data Protection Supervisor and in relation to data protection and privacy law in general. The aim of the panel is to shed light on the benefits and drawbacks this novel ‘ethification’ might bring in relation to what has classically been thought of as data protection and privacy law, and how this affects the complex articulations of the respective roles of politics, law, organization, technology and ethics in democratic constitutional states.
