Data protection is actually a misnomer. Protecting your data is just a tool to protect you.

And so the GDPR does not only protect your data. It also protects you from things like profiling or automated legal decisions based on existing data.

For example a health provider is of course allowed to collect and save you health information. Analysing their huge data set and deciding that you are statistically a risk patient and terminating your contract is still very much illegal.