COVID-19 Pandemic and GDPR: When Scientific Research becomes a Component of Public Deliberation

The chapter aims to carry out a critical assessment of the impact of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on the management, dissemination and re-use of research data, as the basis of public deliberation in the scenario outlined by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this emergency situation, data have been fundamental and crucial in the life of citizens and for institutions and politics as well. The Open Science projects presented by the European institutions seem to endorse the idea that scientific knowledge should be at the basis of public deliberation: a model of openness, re-use and sharing of data relevant for both European researchers and politics is set up by such projects. Correspondingly, the focus of this chapter is on the compliance of these projects of Open Science within the provisions of the GDPR and, in particular, the ‘exceptions’ of Article 89, in order to determine whether and to what extent scientific research appears at the basis of public deliberation, and thus a prerequisite for political decision.