With the festive season upon us, I may be posting a little less and instead singing Christmas songs with the family. So let’s look back at 2025 and anticipate 2026, based on interactions with my LinkedIn articles & posts:
– Pseudonymisation & the concept of “personal data” were significant in 2025. 4 of my top 5 posts & articles were (in chronological order): my commentary on the EDPB’s pseudonymisation guidelines in January, my in-depth analysis of SRB and 2 posts on the (leaked and then actual draft) Digital Omnibus. The other one in the top 5 was my analysis of the Dun & Bradstreet judgment on automated decision-making & trade secret disclosure.
– AI model training & GDPR interactions continued to be a popular topic, notably with the Cologne High Regional Court’s judgment rejecting an injunction request to prevent the use of public Facebook & Instagram content. There continue to be contradictory decisions in this respect, though, with a recent Dutch decision going in another direction. A lot of similarities to the intellectual property debates going on (as illustrated notably by the Getty judgment).
– The Belgian Data Protection Authority and related appeals also continue to be important well beyond the borders of Belgium, from the TCF-related judgment of May of the Brussels Market Court to the Belgian DPA’s mass rejection of complaints by NOYB based on the idea of a fictional mandate or bypassing of the (optional) non-implementation of Article 80(2) GDPR, along with the Market Court’s decision overturning a Belgian DPA decision for abuse of data subject rights (in another NOYB-instigated case).
– ePrivacy continues to be a topic on top of people’s minds (even with or especially as a result of the withdrawal of the proposal for an ePrivacy Regulation), and although the proposal for the Digital Omnibus in my view is a failure in terms of ePrivacy (as opposed to pure GDPR aspects), there appears to be a growing recognition of the need to better harmonise certain consent exemptions as a result of continued national divergence.
What might be in store for 2026?
More data protection debates on the notion of personal data, more litigation about the notion of “accountability” and the practical consequences of joint controllership, and likely quite a bit about how AI models & systems work in practice. Plus, the EDPB is set to publish Consent or Pay Guidelines and updated guidelines (plural) on Pseudonymisation and on Anonymisation. Plus, Digital Fairness Act & Digital Omnibus!
Lots to read, lots to examine – and potentially a few things to challenge.
With that, I wish you a very festive holiday season – and let me wish that to you in song:
– Spotify: https://lnkd.in/e6UuwyqE
– YouTube: https://lnkd.in/e4hibQb8
– Apple Music: https://lnkd.in/eK85zHFk
(it’s a song I wrote last year and recorded before augmenting it here and there through the use of AI, notably in the form of a kind of advanced autotune)
Did this analysis get you thinking? Reach out!
DataLaws.net is entirely open-access, and instead of getting your data in exchange for this content, how about another trade? If this commentary saved you research time or sparked an idea, feel free to invite me over for tea, chai or a hot chocolate next time you are around Brussels or Antwerp - or invite me over to your offices for a chat!
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