A school district wonders whether Directive 95/46/EC case law still informs GDPR interpretation. Which statement is most accurate?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Old maps can still help you read a new highway system. Directive 95/46 is not today’s main EU DP statute, but CJEU thinking from that era often carries forward where GDPR concepts line up. You do not pretend the Directive is still the live general text—and you do not trash every prior principle either.
Full Explanation
Directive 95/46 is not the current general statute, yet CJEU themes and principles from the Directive era can still inform conceptual continuity when interpreting analogous GDPR provisions. School districts should neither treat the Directive as still in force nor discard Directive-era reasoning as worthless. Directive 95/46 remains neither the in-force general EU data-protection statute nor a body of judgments globally annulled. US Supreme Court privacy cases do not bind EU interpreters of the GDPR. Exam caveat: continuity-of-jurisprudence items want “not in force, still conceptually informative.” Operational check: when citing older CJEU cases in a civic legal memo, note whether the holding attaches to a Directive provision that has a GDPR analogue, and flag any GDPR innovations (accountability, stronger remedies) that may change the outcome. For municipal teams, keep a one-page decision note that states the governing instrument, why competing labels fail, and what evidence would change the conclusion. Document the decision trail so auditors can see how the civic team matched facts to the correct legal category rather than to a slogan. Revisit the conclusion when facts, recipients, or processing purposes change, and record who approved the updated analysis.