The Meaning of 'Accountability', 'Responsibility,' and 'Liability' in the GDPR: Proposal for an Ontology

摘要

The contribution starts from the European Regulation 2016/679 to analyse the terms 'accountability', 'responsibility' and 'liability' and their meaning. Accountability is the key to verify that there is an ethical implication in the GDPR through the evaluation of the related human actions. Every action can qualify the behaviour as 'accountability' and hence confer an ethical connotation. We consider the differences among the meaning of the mentioned terms as a starting point to define an ontology of the GDPR.