This course examines the ways in which EU law attempts to protect people’s health when they go online. Many elements of modern lifestyles are conducted in online environments, and this creates many new ways in which people’s health and wellbeing can be harmed. Legal frameworks are starting to grapple with the challenge of protecting people when they engage in social, cultural and economic activities online, however existing legal structures and concepts are frequently not suited to this task and require substantial revision. Some of this is already taking place within EU law, however there remain significant gaps.
This course will explore the ways in which EU law is evolving in an attempt to protect people’s health from risks that arise from modern online lifestyles. We will start from the political ambitions in this area, and move to the relevant parts of the declaration on Digital Rights and Principles, which sets out entitlements that the EU and Member States should guarantee to people when they go online. We then move to current EU legislation and case law to examine whether the relevant digital rights are being sufficiently protected. We then look to the future and whether EU law is capable of evolving much further to guard against risks from online lifestyle to people’s health.