The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides extra protection for certain categories of personal data, called “special category data”, under Article 9 of the GDPR. Special category data refers to data which reveals:

“Racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purposes of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation”.

These categories of personal data shall not be processed unless a controller can avail of one of the exceptions under Article 9(2) of the GDPR. These exceptions include explicit consent, exceptions on the basis of employment or social protection law and processing in respect of the courts acting in their judicial capacity. See Article 9(2) for a full list of exceptions.