Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in the EU – impact on fundamental rights

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) is collecting and analysing relevant data and information on the impact for people’s fundamental rights of the measures taken by EU Member States in response to the outbreak of COVID-19.
Project Status
Findings available
Project start date
March
2020

What?

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) is collecting and analysing relevant data and information on the impact for people’s fundamental rights of the measures taken by EU Member States in response to the outbreak of COVID-19.

The Agency’s multidisciplinary research network, FRANET, collects the data, complemented by desk research.

Why?

The impact on fundamental rights of the measures taken in the context of the outbreak have raised concerns globally. In an online vlog, for example, FRA Director Michael O’Flaherty highlights the need to mitigate the impact of measures on people’s rights, to ensure that measures are necessary and proportionate to the evaluated risk and that their impact on certain groups, such as children and older people, are taken into account.

FRA’s research will identify key measures that government and public authorities in the 27 EU Member States took to stop the spread of the Coronavirus. It will describe their impact on selected key fundamental rights such as non-discrimination and equality, freedom of movement, privacy and data protection.

How?

FRA will collect information on:

  • public health measures taken in response to the outbreak and how they affect certain rights (e.g. impact of quarantine and social distancing measures on free movement in general);
  • how measures may disproportionately affect certain groups (e.g. impact of school closures on working women; impact of business closures on self-employed persons and people with low incomes);
  • the impact of the outbreak on certain national or ethnic communities where the virus is reported to be widespread (including data concerning incidents of xenophobic speech, acts of harassment, and violent attacks against such communities);
  • instances of infringement of privacy and/or data protection rights related to the outbreak;
  • Member State level practices that could be considered ‘promising’ in the context of:
    • government/public authorities taking into account how certain measures may disproportionately affect specific groups, and taking extra measures to address this.
    • action taken to counter the spread of disinformation online.

It should be noted that while FRA is focusing its data collection on these issues, the final content of the report may differ slightly as the situation varies across EU Member States and is evolving rapidly.

Findings

FRA will issue a short report on its website in the second week of April 2020.

See also