Positive action towards vulnerable ethnic minorities: the need for a legal framework for ethnic personal data respectful of minority law and privacy law

The PhD concerns the implementation of positive actions in a legal framework for ethnic personal data in which minority and privacy law is respected in order to fight ethnic discrimination in Belgium. The research aims to prove that Belgian privacy and data protection rules do not preclude the collection and use of data on race or ethnic origin for the implementation of anti-discrimination and diversity policies. These rights must be reconciled and utilized in a complementary way for Belgian anti-discrimination policies to reach their full potential. Providing policy makers and legislators with precise and accurate data and statistics ethnic discrimination in Belgium, will enable them to implement effective strategies and introduce measures of positive discrimination in key areas and sectors in order to enhance minority rights and guarantee equal treatment for those more vulnerable in society because of their ethnic origin. To support and strengthen this reasoning, and to take stock of the available options, there are indeed several possible alternative ways of gathering and using the necessary data for the purpose of positive actions, comparative research will be undertaken with other countries using ethnic data to enhance their anti-discrimination policies. The comparative research will focus on two groups of countries, namely the United Kingdom and the USA, two common law countries with a different culture and a history in favor of the statistical use of equality data, and 2 France and the Netherlands, two civil law countries with a more similar culture to Belgium but where the debate on the use of equality data is further advanced. The envisaged outcome of the research is to prove that neither minority legislation nor human rights legislation nor data protection legislation creates an obstacle for a Belgian policy of positive actions towards vulnerable ethnic minorities based on equality data.