Here you can find an archive of the news and posts from the DPSN.

November 28, 2023

Call for participants: the third DPSN International Data Protection Day work-in-progress online event (19 January 2024)

Would you like to share your research with fellow data protection academics worldwide?

Do it together with the DPSN community!

DPSN Annual Event Poster

One of our network’s missions is to create a platform for people to get to know each other’s work better. The previous International Researchers Online Meet-up events brought together more than 150 data protection law scholars worldwide. We are once again calling for expressions of interest to do very short presentations of your research – be it your developing PhD, interesting master thesis, upcoming promising paper, or brand-new project. All levels of seniority are welcome, the only requirement being the willingness to engage with others in rigorous yet friendly spirits.

September 7, 2023

Event: Publishing on Data Protection: Monographs and Generalist Journals

September 14th Seminar

Dear DPSN community,

We hope you had a nice summer break and are very happy to inform you that we will return with our activities soon!

On September 14th from 13:00 to 14:30 CET, the DPSN is delighted to host an online seminar in which our very own Dr. Orla Lynskey (London School of Economics) and Prof. Lee Andrew Bygrave (University of Oslo) will be talking about publishing on data protection in generalist journals and as monographs.

June 29, 2023

Online lecture by Prof. Christopher Kuner: Publishing in an international law journal: the editor’s perspective

On Thursday, 29 June, from 4.30-6.00pm CET, the DPSN is delighted to host an online lecture by Prof. Christopher Kuner on publishing in an international law journal, from his perspective as an editor.

Kuner - online seminar series(1)

Dr. Christopher Kuner has been active in EU and global data protection law since the 1990s as a lawyer, author, and academic. He was previously director of the Brussels Privacy Hub and professor of law at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), and has taught at the University of Cambridge, the European University Institute, and the Hague Academy of International Law. He is currently Affiliate Professor at the University of Copenhagen, a Visiting Fellow at Maastricht University, and Senior Privacy Counsel in the Brussels office of Wilson Sonsini, as well as being a member of the European Commission’s Multisectoral Stakeholder Group on the GDPR. The author of numerous articles and books, Dr. Kuner is founder and editor-in-chief of the law journal International Data Privacy Law and one of the principal editors of the commentary on the GDPR published by Oxford University Press, as well as editor of the OUP monograph series on privacy and data protection law.

June 21, 2023

The Brussels effect in China: What happened after the Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) and how will it go?

On Wednesday, 21 June, from 13:00 to 15:00 CEST, DPSN together with LSTS - VUB are organising an online seminar themed ‘The Brussels effect in China: What happened after the Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) and how will it go?’

The Brussels effect has become a buzzword with the development of global data protection standards in recent years. The Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), China’s counterpart to the GDPR, was also created under the EU’s regulatory gravity. After one and a half years of enforcement of the PIPL, questions have risen as to how well the imported regulatory tools have settled into China’s reality and how it has impacted the digital industry and individuals both domestic and global. Against the backdrop of the growing call for reform of the EU data protection law, how will China react to similar regulatory challenges such as the ineffectiveness of informed consent and the influence of the powerful internet giants?

May 25, 2023

The State of Data Protection Law Academia

On the 25th of May 2023, the Data Protection Law Scholars Network (DPSN) will participate at Computers, Privacy & Data Protection (CPDP) 2023

This will be an in-person event scheduled for May 25th (Thursday) between 17:15 and 18:30 at M-Village Grande.

As you may have noticed, a couple of weeks ago we published a word cloud to solicit the active participation of our entire community and identify the most pressing issues in the academic world of data protection. Specifically, we classified them as follows:

April 25, 2023

A Conversation on the Careers Beyond Academia

On the 9th of May 2023, the Data Protection Law Scholars Network (DPSN) is organising a special discussing on the careers beyond Academia. The event will take place online, between 17:00 and 18:30 Brussels Time.

DPSN Careers Outside Academia Event

This is a panel discussion consisting of four speakers who, after having obtained their PhDs on information regulation/data protection topics, are now pursuing different careers beyond the Academia:

Dr. Ben Hayes (AWO)

January 12, 2023

DPSN International Data Protection Day work-in-progress event on Friday 27th January 2023 online

On the 27th of January 2023, coinciding with International Data Protection Day, the Data Protection Law Scholars Network (DPSN) organises its second international meet-up of data protection law researchers. The event will take place online, between 15:00 and 18:00 Brussels time.

DP Day event - registrants

Format/What to expect

Speakers were selected through a call for abstracts for very short presentations that the Network launched back in 2022. As we wanted to give a forum to all relevant applicants to present, we decided to make the event an hour longer.
Data protection law scholars of all levels of seniority will present in 3 slides and 5 minutes their current work. The programme encompasses 2 sessions which consist of two parallel streams each with an equal number of speakers. The 3rd and final session takes place in plenary. The streams are loosely thematically organised while still covering a diverse and innovative range of topics in data protection law. The programme has a further element of surprise, meaning that we will not announce the names of the speakers per session, but attendees will be allocated randomly either to Parallel Stream 1 or to Parallel Stream 2. Throughout the event, participants will be actively encouraged to engage with each other’s work and network.

November 23, 2022

Reading Groups and Book Clubs about data protection law and privacy in December 2022 and January 2023

Interested in Reading Groups and Book Clubs about Data Protection and Privacy?

On Monday 19 December 2022, at 12:00-13:00 CET you can join the second Privacy Book Club meeting organized by researchers of the Digital Legal Lab. They will be discussing Privacy is power (2021) by Véliz, C. (Melville House). More information about registration, as well as the Book Club and its next activities can be found here.

On Tuesday 10 January 2023, at 16:00-17:30 CET you can join the online Book Club #9, organized by researchers of the Law, Science, Technology and Society (LSTS) Research Group of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. This time they will be discussing a book picked from the LSTS Books of the Year 2021 list: Invisible women - Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (2019) by Criado Perez, C. . Lina Jasmontaite will open the discussion with a brief prologue on the book. More information about registration, as well as the Book Club and its activities can be found here.

November 9, 2022

Call for participants: the second DPSN International Data Protection Day work-in-progress event will take place on Friday 27th January 2023 online

Would you like to argue about your research? Do it together with the DPSN community!

Call for Participants: International Researchers Online Meet-up

Call for participants

One of our network’s missions is to create a platform for people to get to know each other’s work better. With this in mind, we are once again calling for expressions of interest to do very short presentations of your research – be it your developing PhD, interesting master thesis, upcoming promising paper, or brand-new project. All levels of seniority are welcome, the only requirement being to be open to listen to others in a rigorous yet friendly spirit.

October 24, 2022

Launching the DPSN online seminar series

This fall we kick start our brand new online seminar series with two exciting seminars:

Online seminar series 2022 10 19

9th November 16:00 – 17:30 Brussels Time: Conducting DPIAs with Oskar J. Gstrein

Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) are a useful method to spark an interdisciplinary discussion about the collection, storage, management and sharing of personal data. While the GDPR makes them mandatory in certain scenarios of data use, the methodology to implement them varies. In this session we explore ways to teach how to do a DPIA, especially in interdisciplinary teaching settings and scenarios where emerging technologies play a role. The material presented in this session is based on the COMENIUS project Privacy in Research, which was developed by Esther Hoorn at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands.