Data subject / rights of the data subject
The information material provided by “Your Data. Your Rights.” often speaks about consumers, when the legally correct term from the General Data Protection Regulation is actually “data subject”. This refers to identified or identifiable natural persons, i.e. human beings who can be identified by their name or other characteristics (see Personal data).
The General Data Protection Regulation contains a whole chapter (Chapter 3 with Articles 12 to 23) on the rights of data subjects. It sets uniform standards for all consumers throughout the EU. In Germany, however, the Federal Data Protection Act contains various exceptions, which are dealt with in the dictionary entries for the respective rights of data subjects.
These are the rights of those concerned in the General Data Protection Regulation:
- Transparent information by controllers to data subjects (Articles 12, 13 and 14)
- Right of access (Article 15)
- Right to rectification (Article 16)
- Right to erasure, right to be forgotten (Article 17)
- Right to restriction of data processing (Article 18)
- Notification-obligation regarding the rights to rectification, erasure and restriction (Article 19)
- Right to data portability (Article 20)
- Right to object (Article 21)
- Rights in automated decision making (Article 22)
- Right to lodge a complaint (Articles 77 and 80)
- Right to sue (Article 79)
Source: Regulation (EU) 2016/679
Article 4(1) GDPR (Definitions)
“personal data” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (“data subject”); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person
Source: Regulation (EU) 2016/679
