The 8th edition of the Brussels Privacy Symposium, co-organised in Brussels by the Future of Privacy Forum and the Brussels Privacy Hub on 7 October 2024, was a great success. More than 160 people from all over Europe and the world attended the event.

Marie Schwed Shenker, PhD candidate at eLaw, has successfully completed an intensive summer school on Social Robotics at Utrecht University. The program offered a comprehensive mix of theoretical instruction and hands-on experience, providing her with the skills to design and experiment with social…

Misleading social media posts are falsely claiming that the Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo uses facial recognition at self-service checkouts. Jumbo denies this, although it has launched trials with AI cameras to combat shoplifting without using facial recognition.

We are excited to announce that Marie Schwed Shenker's research paper, co-authored with Dr Eduard Fosch-Villaronga (Associate Professor at eLaw) and Professor Bart Custers (Professor of Law and Data Science), has been accepted for presentation at the 16th International Conference on Social Robotics…

On 22 July, Danny Mekić, PhD candidate at eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technology and Eindhoven University of Technology, was named ‘Mr. of the Week’ following his recent wins in two lawsuits against social media company Twitter.

Francien Dechesne, Associate Professor at eLaw, contributed as an expert to the advisory report of the organisation AlgorithmAudit, which was presented to the Dutch Minister for Digitalisation Alexandra van Huffelen on Wednesday 29 November 2023. The report contains a number of concrete norms to avoid…

Gianclaudio Malgieri, Associate Professor of Law and Board member at eLaw, has been appointed to the Programme Committee of PLSC, the Privacy Law Scholarship Conference, one of the world's most attended academic privacy conferences. Gianclaudio is the only representative from a Dutch university and…

Simone van der Hof, professor of Law and Digital Technology at eLaw, has joined the EU Special Group on Code of Conduct for age-appropriate design as an expert.

Dr Gianclaudio Malgieri, Associate Professor of Law & Technology at eLaw and Co-Director of the Brussels Privacy Hub, will deliver a keynote speech at Maastricht University. This keynote is a part of the Maastricht Experience Week focusing on 'The future of privacy, cybersecurity and data management'.…

Gianclaudio Malgieri, Associate professor at eLaw, was invited to present his research on human Vulnerability and EU digital ecosystem at the University of Westminster in London.

Instant messaging app Telegram is not faring well in the news – the reason being the illicit activities occurring on the platform. Professor Bart Custers helped Dutch current affairs programme ‘EenVandaag’ respond to questions about the platform.

This month, it came out that a subdistrict court judge used ChatGPT to formulate a ruling. The judge included some text generated by the popular AI chatbot in his decision. This resulted in a lot of media commotion, raising doubts as to whether using ChatGPT in court is permissible and responsible.

In a new book forthcoming with Oxford University Press, Dr Helena U Vrabec, guest researcher at eLaw and privacy lawyer at Palantir Technologies, explores the area of control rights under the GDPR.

Insurance companies are registering more and more people for having committed fraud. In principle, it is a good idea to tackle cases of fraud. However, research shows that an increasing number of people are being wrongly included on the fraud list. According to Bart Custers, Professor of Law & Data…

The Netherlands has DigiD, Portugal ‘de Cartão de Cidadão’, and Ireland MyGovID. Europe now wants one uniform digital identity card - the same for all Member States. For the Dutch government, the European successor to DigiD is a prestige project. State Secretary Van Huffelen wants to roll out an app…

Governments are increasingly cracking down on tech companies like X, Telegram and Clearview that flout the law, with a fine, ban or criminal prosecution. In practice, however, this has little effect. A tougher stance is needed, argues Bart Custers, Professor of Law and Data Science at eLaw – Center…

Insurers determine for themselves whether someone has committed fraud, impose sanctions immediately and hardly ever report it. As a result, police, prosecutors, and criminal courts are side-lined. And policyholders are sometimes left out in the cold. Bart Custers, professor of Law & Data Science at…

Javier Aleuanlli, an Advanced Masters graduate from the Law and Digital Technologies programme at Leiden University, has been awarded Google's Diverse Copyright Thesis Award 2021 for his LL.M. thesis "Augmented Reality and Copyright: perspective under the EU framework". In this work, Javier mapped and…

The EU proposal for a regulatory framework on artificial intelligence will not prevent the dangers of cybercrime or the spreading of fake news using ChatGPT. Cyber criminals can use the new technology to write harmful software, phishing mails and fake news.

Europe is working full steam towards a digital identity for every EU citizen. And although it might be really useful to be able to hire a car everywhere in the EU with no hassles, Bart Custers, Professor of Law and Data Science at eLaw, the Center for Law and Digital Technologies, sees many loose ends.…

In just over a decade, Uber has revolutionised how we move around our cities. The ride-hailing app was a game-changer: you just tapped your phone and a cab would find you. You even paid through the app. However, some of the Uber’s more controversial practices have triggered the interest of law enforcement,…

On Thursday 29 February, the European Data Protection Supervisor, Wojciech Wiewiórowski, visited the eLaw Center for Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden Law School to give a lecture entitled 'Fundamental rights and/or market surveillance: The current and future role of Data Protection Authorities…

The Council of Europe has released a groundbreaking report on the digital dimension of violence against women in the Republic of Moldova, authored by Carlotta Rigotti, postdoctoral researcher at eLaw.

On 7 and 8 March 2024, SciencesPo Law School hosted the ‘Legal Technologies and the Bodies’ conference, where Carlotta Rigotti, postdoctoral researcher focusing on law, gender, and technology at eLaw, presented her working paper about legal perspectives on sex robots and consent.

Carlotta Rigotti, Postdoc researcher at eLaw, participated in the ‘Intersectional Fairness in AI: Legal Frameworks, Tools, and Learning Opportunities’ webinar on 10 December 2024.

Carlotta Rigotti co-authors a new publication on EU law and image-based sexual abuse in the German Law Journal.

On Thursday 23 May, Carlotta Rigotti, postdoctoral researcher at eLaw, gave a guest lecture on the regulation of image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) in the European Union at Kyoto University.

The issue of how to deal with a development such as digitalisation in the public domain raises difficult questions for the municipality: who is responsible and when do you intervene?

Carlotta Rigotti, Postdoc researcher at eLaw, was invited by Conventry University to join a roundtable on policy approaches to address online and technology-facilitated violence.

On 20 November 2024, Gianclaudio Malgieri, Associate Professor of Law and Technology at Leiden University's eLaw department and Co-Director of the Brussels Privacy Hub, will moderate a flagship panel at the IAPP Europe Data Protection Congress in Brussels. The congress is recognised as Europe’s leadnig…

PhD defence

eLaw - Center of Law and Digital technologies from Leiden Law School, and the Vascular Surgery Department at Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, join forces to explore the use of AI for diabetes and secondary prevention of diabetic foot problems and won a prize for it.

As part of the euCONSENT consortium, the Center for Law and Digital Technologies (eLaw) has been awarded European Commission funding to create a child rights’ centred cross-border system for online age verification and parental consent.

Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Associate Professor at eLaw, contributed to 'Cyber–Physical–Human Systems', a book exploring the latest developments in interactions between cyber–physical systems and humans.

Jaap van den Herik was appointed Officer in the Order of Orange Nassau on 8 October on his retirement as professor of Law and Information Technology.

The Faculty Board and the Institute of Private Law have agreed to combine the disciplines of child law, international children’s rights and health law into one Department of Child Law and Health Law.

Recently, Carlotta Rigotti participated in the ViolenceStop project, a collaboration between Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) and the Central University “Marta Abreu” of Las Villas (Cuba).

De Volkskrant has a guest columnist every month who writes a column for the website on Sundays. eLaw PhD student Danny Mekić was asked by de Volkskrant to be guest columnist for the month of January.

As of 1 November 2021, Bart Willem Schermer has been appointed as Professor of Privacy and Cybercrime at eLaw – Center for Law and Digital Technologies.

Despite a lack of specific legislation on this issue, Dutch Minister of Justice and Security Dilan Yeşilgöz is allowing the national police force to experiment with facial recognition technology.

On 29 and 30 November, Masaryk University in Brno (Czech Republic) hosted this year’s Cyberspace conference, where Gavin workshopped a paper-in-progress entitled ‘Ready! Fire! Aim? EU law’s battle for relevance in the war against terrorist content online’.

In anticipation of future legal reforms on gender-based violence in the Republic of Moldova, Dr Carlotta Rigotti was invited by the United Nations Population Fund to participate in a roundtable discussion on legislative and policy approaches to online and technology-facilitated violence.

Extremist users of Telegram are moving en masse to other chat apps, such as the anonymous SimpleX. In this way, they hope to avoid detection, now that Telegram founder Pavel Durov is going to share personal data of criminal users with authorities.

Workshop brings multidisciplinary experts together to debate proposed detection technologies and their impact on fundamental rights.

Over the past year, many students and staff members of Leiden Law School have been lauded for their extraordinary achievements. For instance: a grant received, an award won, or an appointment by a special committee. We have combined all these achievements in our Honours Gallery 2022:

The Dutch Public Prosecution Service (OM) and the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) want to use private DNA databases in an effort to solve deadlocked murder cases. Bart Custers, Professor of Law & Data Science at eLaw, Center for Law and Digital Technologies, expects that this is permissible from…

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Researchers from Leiden Law School and the LUMC have received a grant for a joint research project. They will be looking into ways in which caregivers and patients can work together to come to a better decision.

We are pleased to announce a groundbreaking research study delving into crucial aspects of safety and responsibility in the domain of personal care robots, explicitly focusing on robotic lower-limb exoskeletons.