In law, the choice of words matters, and a given interpretation can mean the difference between a behaviour being permitted or prohibited. When some recently claimed that the Cologne Higher Regional Court might have misinterpreted one of the European Union’s newer data-related acts, the Digital Markets Act (DMA for short), the challenge to the judges’ […]
Does training of AI systems involve the processing of personal data, and is it permitted under the GDPR? These were the two fundamental questions that I have already looked into in two previous articles: On the date of that second article, the Cologne Higher Regional Court (the Oberlandesgericht Köln – the Cologne HRC) delivered a […]
This is an article that I wrote in the context of a Chatham House rules roundtable on questions to be tackled more extensively in the future regarding the interaction between AI systems & data protection. This particular one relates to AI agents and the notion of authority, notably as regards (i) the user’s perspective (subordination?), […]
The Irish Data Protection Commission’s statement of 21 May 2025 “on Meta AI” (just like the judgment coming today in a German court case) provides a great excuse to talk briefly about GDPR legal grounds & AI model training, while I continue to work on the next part of my Better Regulation series (that next […]
The European Commission’s announcement that it will consider simplifying regulatory regimes, notably in relation to data and technology, seems to open Pandora’s box. Is it a chance to draw lessons from what works well and what works less well? In this series on “Better Regulation” in relation to the digital economy, I will be exploring […]
The European Commission’s announcement that it will consider simplifying regulatory regimes, notably in relation to data and technology, seems to open Pandora’s box. Is it a chance to draw lessons from what works well and what works less well? In this series on “Better Regulation” in relation to the digital economy, I will be exploring […]
Time to talk about what can be done to improve the “cookie” rule! In Part I of this series on the opportunities and difficulties of today’s ePrivacy regime, I discussed the underappreciated and seemingly-easy-but-really-complex world of the anti-spam rule, Article 13 of the ePrivacy Directive (or ePD). This Part II is about a provision that […]
Now that the Commission has withdrawn its proposal for an ePrivacy Regulation, where does that leave the ePrivacy Directive and the issues organisations face? Over the past 7-8 years, a lot has been said about the proposed ePrivacy Regulation. Intended as both a modernisation of the ePrivacy Directive and a manner of getting to (more) […]
Understanding what is and is not personal data is fundamental to the proper interpretation and enforcement of the most famous data protection law, the GDPR. If no personal data are being processed, the GDPR simply does not apply. Some have considered that “personal data” is an absolute concept, i.e. information can be “in and of […]
This op-ed was first published on EULawLive on 21 January 2025 and is now republished here, in accordance with the EULawLive guidelines & terms for guest authors. The header image is of course an easy pun about the implications of a broader application of judgment T-354/22 and how data subjects might be in a position […]
