The Electronic Surveillance of Public Assemblies: Political Privacy & Public Anonymity in Greece

I. Introduction: The Electronic Surveillance Of Public Assemblies

The electronic surveillance of public assemblies has been a controversial topic in the Greek public arena, particularly during the parliamentary discussion of Law 3625/2007. This Law exempted all police activities involving data processing during public assemblies from their obligation to protect the fundamental principles deriving from the rights to privacy and data protection (Art. 8). This paper argues that such a form of surveillance of the citizens’ political activism affects the values protected under the Greek Constitution, particularly the right to data protection and the freedom of assembly. In order to examine this issue in depth, we pursue a three-level analysis: a) we analyze the content of both the right to data protection [Art. 9A of the Greek Constitution] and freedom of assembly [Art. 11 of the Greek Constitution], separately and combined, and discuss the concepts of political privacy and public anonymity, and the way they guarantee the protection of public assemblies, b) we examine how the legislative exemption affects such constitutional values and guarantees and c) we use three key cases of the European Court of Human Rights to further examine the legitimacy of the electronic surveillance of Greek public assemblies.