This thesis deals with the issue of civil liability for data breach, which is enforceable directly on the basis of Article 82 of the General Data Protection Regulation. Compared to the previous Directive 95/46/EC, the General Data Protection Regulation explicitly recognizes the right to compensation for non-pecuniary damage and extends the responsibility from operators to processors.
The thesis also analyzes the dilemma of legally recognized non-material damage, which causes the most discrepancies between jurisprudence of national courts of Member States. However, civil liability in the field of personal data protection is introduced by a European Union regulation, which is directly applicable in Member States and aims at unifying the field of data protection. In the future we can therefore expect the development of euroautonomous concepts of damage and other elements of civil liability for data breach to be developed by the Court of Justice of the European Union, which has already received several preliminary questions, the answers to which will clarify many pressing issues.
In this thesis, I also comment on the solutions provided by the proposal of the Slovenian Personal Data Protection Act, which is still in the legislative process and will represent the implementing act of the General Data Protection Regulation.
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