Legal protection of the right to personal data and liability for damages: Between the normative framework and actual effectiveness

The right to protection of personal data is one of the key modern human rights, the violation of which is becoming increasingly frequent amid intensive digitization and mass data processing. Although the normative framework, especially in the European legal space through the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, 2016), provides for the right to compensation for material and non-material damage due to the violation of this right, in practice, this raises the question of the real effectiveness of civil law protection for injured persons. The aim of this paper is to examine the scope and limitations of civil liability for the violation of the right to the protection of personal data, with special reference to the institution of compensation for non-material damages. The paper applies the normative-legal and comparative legal method, as well as an analysis of the relevant case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, especially with regard to the interpretation of Article 82 of the GDPR (2016). Special attention is devoted to the consideration of the relationship between the violation of rights and the existence of legally relevant damage, as well as the problems of proving non-material damage in national legal systems. The research results indicate the existence of a normatively established, but in practice, often fragmented system of civil legal protection, in which uneven judicial practice and the absence of clear criteria for establishing the existence and amount of compensation for non-material damage reduce the real effectiveness of the right to compensation. In conclusion, the work points to the need for further harmonization of civil law institutes with the objectives of the right to protect personal data, in order to ensure complete and effective legal protection of injured subjects.