union affiliation), but the legal rule also mentions health, sex life and personal data.
This would appear to be an expansion of the constitutional definition, but as a matter
a fact the legal rules try to materialise the protection due to “private life” by
translating it to dimensions of private life that are more intimate and that people
need to protect with more intensity. The National Authority on Data Protection, in its
recent practice seems to have excessively extended the notion by considering as
sensitive almost all personal data that touches any aspect of private life,
85 which in
practice has the potential of blurring the distinction between sensitive and ordinary
data, a logic that if generally adopted would additionally have the potential to hinder
operations of legislative and judicial balancing with other rights, particularly those
related to speech, information and press, and important or even compelling state
interests.
The reason for the protection of this dimensions of one’s life is not just aimed at
serving privacy for its own sake, but also to protect people from the discrimination
that would arise if certain information were disclosed, besides blocking or at least
delaying, in dark times, to use an Arendtian expression,
86 the reunion of undesirable
persons to other moral and constitutional unacceptable purposes (massive detention,
racial, religious or ethnic cleansing, extermination, etc.). For this reason the Cape
Verdean Constitution, in the same article, forbids the attribution of a single number
to an individual, which according to a thesis of the Constitutional Court serves a
symbolic objective of eliminating the possibility of reducing the status of the person
and the denial of their personal identity, but also to prevent the State having a unique
file on them or a complete interconnection between files that would permit the total
or substantial reconstruction of self.
87
As previously mentioned, the constitutional norm also integrates some exceptions
that allow for the gathering and treatment of sensitive data when there is
(a) expressed consent of the holder/data subject; (b) authorisation provided by law,
with assurance of non-discrimination; or (c) for data processing of non-identifiable
individual statistics purposes.
In a negative construction, one can recognise other data that are considered
non-sensitive, ordinary data, that are not protected with such intensity, but that,
nevertheless, enjoy a reasonable level of protection, starting with the fact that
because of the recognition of a right of protection of personal data that encompasses
a right to not having data collected by the State, the limitations are considered
85 The Authority since 2015 when it provided its first advice on the installation of CCTV cameras in
airports adopted this understanding (the first was Advice No 4/2015, 05/2015 and 06/2016, 7/2015,
all of 24 December); recently, see Advice No 05/2017, 4 August, 1.1 (on file with author), 2, and
Advice No 09/2017, 13 December, 1.1 (on file with author). But lately it added some important
criteria for determining sensitive data by linking access to image to the capacity of the profile
determination of a certain person (Advice No 3/2018, of 30 January, on the implementation of the
CCTV System of the Project Safe City, 8 and ff).
86 Arendt (1968).
87 In the Ruling No 27/2018, of 20 December, Judy Ike Hills v. Supreme Court of Justice,
Constitutional Court, J. Pina Delgado (rap.), II, 8.2.
Data Protection in the Internet: Cape Verde’s National Report
91
This would appear to be an expansion of the constitutional definition, but as a matter
a fact the legal rules try to materialise the protection due to “private life” by
translating it to dimensions of private life that are more intimate and that people
need to protect with more intensity. The National Authority on Data Protection, in its
recent practice seems to have excessively extended the notion by considering as
sensitive almost all personal data that touches any aspect of private life,
85 which in
practice has the potential of blurring the distinction between sensitive and ordinary
data, a logic that if generally adopted would additionally have the potential to hinder
operations of legislative and judicial balancing with other rights, particularly those
related to speech, information and press, and important or even compelling state
interests.
The reason for the protection of this dimensions of one’s life is not just aimed at
serving privacy for its own sake, but also to protect people from the discrimination
that would arise if certain information were disclosed, besides blocking or at least
delaying, in dark times, to use an Arendtian expression,
86 the reunion of undesirable
persons to other moral and constitutional unacceptable purposes (massive detention,
racial, religious or ethnic cleansing, extermination, etc.). For this reason the Cape
Verdean Constitution, in the same article, forbids the attribution of a single number
to an individual, which according to a thesis of the Constitutional Court serves a
symbolic objective of eliminating the possibility of reducing the status of the person
and the denial of their personal identity, but also to prevent the State having a unique
file on them or a complete interconnection between files that would permit the total
or substantial reconstruction of self.
87
As previously mentioned, the constitutional norm also integrates some exceptions
that allow for the gathering and treatment of sensitive data when there is
(a) expressed consent of the holder/data subject; (b) authorisation provided by law,
with assurance of non-discrimination; or (c) for data processing of non-identifiable
individual statistics purposes.
In a negative construction, one can recognise other data that are considered
non-sensitive, ordinary data, that are not protected with such intensity, but that,
nevertheless, enjoy a reasonable level of protection, starting with the fact that
because of the recognition of a right of protection of personal data that encompasses
a right to not having data collected by the State, the limitations are considered
85 The Authority since 2015 when it provided its first advice on the installation of CCTV cameras in
airports adopted this understanding (the first was Advice No 4/2015, 05/2015 and 06/2016, 7/2015,
all of 24 December); recently, see Advice No 05/2017, 4 August, 1.1 (on file with author), 2, and
Advice No 09/2017, 13 December, 1.1 (on file with author). But lately it added some important
criteria for determining sensitive data by linking access to image to the capacity of the profile
determination of a certain person (Advice No 3/2018, of 30 January, on the implementation of the
CCTV System of the Project Safe City, 8 and ff).
86 Arendt (1968).
87 In the Ruling No 27/2018, of 20 December, Judy Ike Hills v. Supreme Court of Justice,
Constitutional Court, J. Pina Delgado (rap.), II, 8.2.
Data Protection in the Internet: Cape Verde’s National Report
91