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Because of increased technological complexities and multiple data-exploiting business practices, it is hard for consumers to gain control over their own personal data. Therefore, individual control over personal data has become an important subject in European privacy law. Compared to its predecessor, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) addresses the need for more individual control over personal data more explicitly. With the introduction of several new principles that seem to empower individuals in gaining more control over their data, its changes relative to its predecessors are substantial. It appears, however, that, to increase individual control, data protection law relies on certain assumptions about human decision making. In this work, we challenge these assumptions and describe the actual mechanisms of human decision making in a personal data context. Further, we analyse the extent to which new provisions in the GDPR effectively enhance individual control through a behavioural lens. To guide our analysis, we identify three stages of data processing in the data economy: (1) the information receiving stage, (2) the approval and primary use stage, and (3) the secondary use (reuse) stage. For each stage, we identify the pitfalls of human decision-making that typically emerge and form a threat to individual control. Further, we discuss how the GDPR addresses these threats by means of several legal provisions. Finally, keeping in mind the pitfalls in human decision-making, we assess how effective the new legal provisions are in enhancing individual control. We end by concluding that these legal instruments seem to have made a step towards more individual control, but some threats to individual control remain entrenched in the GDPR.

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Chapter 5 focuses on Article 15 of the GDPR and explains the scope of the information that can be accessed under the right. The chapter then discusses the importance of the interface to submit data subject access requests. The core part of Chapter 5 is the analysis of the regulatory boundaries of the right of access and various avenues to limit the right, for instance, a conflict with the rights of another individual. Finally, the chapter illustrates how the right of access is applied in the data-driven economy by applying it to three different contexts: shared data, anonymised/pseudonymised data, and automated decision-making.