Why do we need data privacy?

Abstract

In recent years, various socio-political debates and scandals have raised old and new questions regarding data protection that, among other things, will also lead to new European legislation initiatives. However relevant each issue may be, there is far too little discussion in the public which potentials, be it positive or negative, exist with the possibility of combining data from different sources. In this article I want to give a non-exhaustive overview of the manner in which such information about everyone of us is collected today, before I discuss the social risks this may entail. I close the article with some theses outlining a path that helps to protect the rights of freedom of the citizens despite the extensive collection and analysis of data (My heartfelt thanks goes to Edward Sodmann for proofreading this text. He required tons of hours to generate something from my text, that can be understood at all.).