4 ms·

Eu law is not enforced by what is written, but rather what the law writers intention when they worked on the law. If a person try to expand the interpretation o

by belorn 2y ago

Eu law is not enforced by what is written, but rather what the law writers intention when they worked on the law. If a person try to expand the interpretation of a law then it will be up to them to demonstrate that the expanded interpretation is what was intended. I could make an argument that any database with my personal information is "personal data" and thus i should have a right to get the whole database sent to me, but i doubt a judge would agree. I would unlikely to be what the law writers intended.

multimoon 2y ago
That seems like a terrible idea for government. “Well actually I meant”, and off went the goalpost into the atmosphere. If a law is so complex that you can’t effectively write it in a locked in medium then the concept of said law is probably flawed.
- edent 2y ago
  The UK - and lots of other countries - use "Common Law". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law Law is often open to interpretation. Take a look at how most laws are written. It might say "owning a sword is illegal", but then the courts have to interpret whether the sharpened blade you are carrying meets that definition.
- anonymousab 2y ago
  Spirit of the law vs. letter of the law. You can't go all-in on the letter of the law because language is imprecise and very contextual, and cannot aptly express the intent behind the law perfectly for all edge cases.
- evoke4908 2y ago
  That's how American law works. The law as written has very little to do with the law as practiced. Everything comes down to how courts interpret the letter of the law as it relates to the messy reality of meatspace. Writing the law is like writing code. You can attempt to reason through each instruction and apply all sorts of static analysis, but you can't actually be certain it will work until you try to run it in production. The courts are the debugger for legal code. Courts attempt to interpret what the letter of the law means and how it applies to the very specific scenario in front of them. Consider a law that simply states carrying a sword in public is illegal. Without common law, this rule applies in 100% of scenarios unless explicitly stated otherwise. If a foreign dignitary comes and expects officers with ceremonial swords, they all go to jail. We interpret law because the ideal vacuum universe in which the law was written does not have unforseen circumstances. A court applies an interpretation to circumstances to come to the judgement that diplomats are allowed to have ceremonial sabers in their entourage. Think about it some more and ask yourself how a society could function in the long term without the ability to reinterpret law to fit particular circumstances. Every law rigidly applied exactly as written forever into the future. The only option to revise a law is by passing a new one.
edent 2y ago
I don't think so. You might be entitled to get the specific row of a database which contained your information. But why would you be entitled to the entire DB?
- belorn 2y ago
  A full row can have any arbitrary number of columns, and have foreign keys to rows in other tables or itself in any length of chains. Any columns could also be data structures like json with arbitrary number of keys and values. In order to have the full context of how the information relate to the identified individual, an argument can be made that you need the full database. The other extreme interpretation is that personal data only refer to data that personal identify someone, and not any information that is related to personal data (in contrast to being related to an identified individual). In the case of an email that would be the email address without the message. In term of slack, the personal data of a user would be the username, full name, and email, since those and not messages is what relate to identified living individuals.

by belorn 2y ago

multimoon 2y ago

That seems like a terrible idea for government. “Well actually I meant”, and off went the goalpost into the atmosphere. If a law is so complex that you can’t effectively write it in a locked in medium then the concept of said law is probably flawed.

edent 2y ago
The UK - and lots of other countries - use "Common Law". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law Law is often open to interpretation. Take a look at how most laws are written. It might say "owning a sword is illegal", but then the courts have to interpret whether the sharpened blade you are carrying meets that definition.
anonymousab 2y ago
Spirit of the law vs. letter of the law. You can't go all-in on the letter of the law because language is imprecise and very contextual, and cannot aptly express the intent behind the law perfectly for all edge cases.
evoke4908 2y ago
That's how American law works. The law as written has very little to do with the law as practiced. Everything comes down to how courts interpret the letter of the law as it relates to the messy reality of meatspace. Writing the law is like writing code. You can attempt to reason through each instruction and apply all sorts of static analysis, but you can't actually be certain it will work until you try to run it in production. The courts are the debugger for legal code. Courts attempt to interpret what the letter of the law means and how it applies to the very specific scenario in front of them. Consider a law that simply states carrying a sword in public is illegal. Without common law, this rule applies in 100% of scenarios unless explicitly stated otherwise. If a foreign dignitary comes and expects officers with ceremonial swords, they all go to jail. We interpret law because the ideal vacuum universe in which the law was written does not have unforseen circumstances. A court applies an interpretation to circumstances to come to the judgement that diplomats are allowed to have ceremonial sabers in their entourage. Think about it some more and ask yourself how a society could function in the long term without the ability to reinterpret law to fit particular circumstances. Every law rigidly applied exactly as written forever into the future. The only option to revise a law is by passing a new one.

edent 2y ago

I don't think so. You might be entitled to get the specific row of a database which contained your information. But why would you be entitled to the entire DB?

belorn 2y ago
A full row can have any arbitrary number of columns, and have foreign keys to rows in other tables or itself in any length of chains. Any columns could also be data structures like json with arbitrary number of keys and values. In order to have the full context of how the information relate to the identified individual, an argument can be made that you need the full database. The other extreme interpretation is that personal data only refer to data that personal identify someone, and not any information that is related to personal data (in contrast to being related to an identified individual). In the case of an email that would be the email address without the message. In term of slack, the personal data of a user would be the username, full name, and email, since those and not messages is what relate to identified living individuals.