De titel van de oratie is: "The state of data protection in the European Union - 20 years after the Lindqvist case"

In 1998, Ms. Lindqvist created a website for the Swedish church to inform parishioners who were preparing for their confirmation. On the website, Ms. Lindqvist published some background information about her colleague-volunteers in the parish, including their contact details. Although Ms. Lindqvist removed the information once she learned some of her colleagues were not pleased with it, she was prosecuted and fined for publishing the information on the internet without authorisation and for having transferred the data to countries outside the European Union. When she challenged the fine, the Swedish court decided to ask the EU Court of Justice questions for clarification of the underlying EU data protection rules. In answering several of these questions, the Court of Justice made sure the data protection rules maintained their effectiveness and credibility. In the inaugural lecture, with which Prof. Kranenborg accepts the chair in European Data Protection and Privacy Law, these answers from the seminal Lindqvist ruling (C-101/01) will be discussed and considered in the light of where the protection of personal data stands in the EU today.