The expanding notion of special categories of data and its limits
Anna Capellà i Ricart, Antoni Roig Batalla · European Journal of Privacy Law & Technologies · 2025
Building on Solove’s warnings on the uselessness of the notion of special categories of data, this article examines the expansion of the concept in the CJEU jurisprudence to assess if, indeed, it has become futile in the EU context. Our research explores how the concept has been expanded to inference, its specific application in the context of the right to be forgotten, and its role in social networks and competition law. We highlight that the current understanding of data of special categories presents limitations in terms of providing an effective protection in the field of big data analytics and we theorise on the suitability of shifting from an exhaustive list of data categories to a more general risk-based approach.