ITALY Law and Practice Contributed by: Maurizio Marullo, Giorgio Vagnoni and Francesco Amoresano, LAWP Studio legale e tributario
vidual, in so far as the transfer of the title does not affect reputation and other personal rights. 5.7 Data in Sport Athletes’ Data Athletes’ biometric data is increasingly used for competitive and commercial purposes, subject to the athlete being informed and providing consent to the processing and usage of health data. In particu - lar, professional teams usually collect athletes’ data through specific analytics software in order to imple - ment tailor-made training methodologies for each ath - lete. Recently, football teams have been entitled to gather and consult live statistics during matches, so coaches now have more tools to make tactical deci - sions. On a commercial level, athletes’ biometric data is usually collected to facilitate scouting activities and to make video games and other digital content. Spectators’ Data Spectators’ data is generally used for commercial and statistical purposes, since registering consumers’ data and their preferences allows business operators to identify their preferences and offer products based on the latest trends (always subject to consent by the data owner). Additionally, spectators’ data is used for security reasons to help law enforcement authorities and event organisers to identify perpetrators of any offences. 5.8 Data Protection Italian data protection legislation consists of the “Pri - vacy Code” and ‒ most importantly ‒ of EU Regulation 2017/679 (the “General Data Protection Regulation”, GDPR), which introduced a new approach that facili - tates the traffic of data and holds data controllers and processors liable for any data breach and/or improper use. Under the GDPR, it is possible to process personal data without consent in specific circumstances (eg, to perform a contract to which the data subject is party, complying with a legal obligation to which the con - troller is subject). However, special protection is still established for so-called sensitive data (eg, reveal - ing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, bio - metric and other health data, etc); use of this data is
allowed only with the specific consent of the data sub - ject or upon the occurrence of specific circumstances. The GDPR has also strengthened the rights of data subjects in terms of: • transparent data treatment; • right of access; • data rectification, erasure and portability; • restriction of processing; • objection; and • communication of personal data breaches. Personal data of athletes and spectators must be treated in accordance with the GDPR as well. There - fore, it is necessary to provide an adequate privacy policy to data subjects and obtain specific consent for sensitive data treatment. Decree Law No 220/2003 regulates the independ - ence of sports law from the ordinary law, “except for relevant cases for the State legal system related to subjective legal situations connected with the sports system”, and establishes exclusive jurisdiction of sports bodies (see 1.4 Disciplinary Framework ) for technical matters (eg, observance and application of sports regulations) and disciplinary matters. For technical and disciplinary matters, sportspeople must apply to sports justice bodies. Their decisions cannot be challenged before ordinary/administrative courts unless they involve “relevant cases for the State legal system” (eg, criminal offences). 6. Dispute Resolution 6.1 Role of National Court Systems For administrative disputes (eg, enrolment, affiliation and registration to competitions), the parties need to pursue remedies before sports justice courts (each federation ensures at least two levels of judgment and, in specific cases, it is possible to challenge said decisions to CONI; see also 1.4 Disciplinary Frame- work ), before they challenge sports justice decisions before the Lazio Regional Administrative Court (Article 135.1.g of the Italian Code of Administrative Proceed - ings).
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