The COVID-19 crisis is imposing a wide range of immediate and likely long-term impacts on organizations, governments, regulators, people and society at large. Many of them are likely to stay with us beyond the immediate crisis and change the way we all live, work and interact going forward. These impacts likely will also be felt in data privacy – from how we perceive this right in light of other rights to how we behave and what we expect. They will also change the way organizations and governments collect, use and share data (not just in the COVID-19 context, but generally).
In this paper, we examine some of these trends from the point of view of organizations, DPAs and society. We also try to anticipate how these trends may force all of these actors to adapt and change in the post-COVID-19 world, including and particularly DPAs. We also suggest that organizational accountability – championed, encouraged and enforced by DPAs – will be essential to mitigating any challenges that such changes might pose for data protection.