Ethnic categories and European human rights law

Abstract

The rise of the notion that in order to develop effective antidiscrimination policies states need to have adequate information on the situation of groups exposed to discrimination has put to the forefront the issue of ethnic or racial classification and data collection. Within human rights law, this results in a potential tension between the promotion of equality, insofar as it requires processing ethnic or racial data, and respect for privacy rights. Based on the analysis of the positions taken by major European human rights institutions, this article discusses the implications of privacy and other human rights in relation to both data collection and ethnic categorization.