ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the traditional paradigm of data protection and on the provisions, primarily in the new EU General Data Protection Regulation that can be used to safeguard individual rights in Big Data processing. It goes beyond the existing legal framework and, in the light of the path opened by the guidelines on Big Data adopted by the Council of Europe, suggests a broader approach that encompasses the collective dimension of data protection. European data protection regulations, since their origins in the second half of the last century, focused on information regarding individuals, without distinguishing between public or private information. The period from the mid-1980s to the 1990s was characterized not only by the rising of a uniform approach to data protection regulation among the members of the European Union, but also by a change in the regulatory paradigm, due to the new technological, social, and economic scenarios.
