Data Protection Law and Emotion

Data protection law is often positioned as a regulatory solution to the risks posed by computational systems. Despite the widespread adoption of data protection laws, however, there are those who remain sceptical as to their capacity to engender change. Much of this criticism focuses on our role as ’data subjects’. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that we lack the capacity to act in our own best interests and, what is more, that our decisions have negative impacts on others. Our decision-making limitations seem to be the inevitable by-product of the technological, social, and economic reality. Data protection law bakes in these limitations by providing frameworks for notions such as consent and subjective control rights and by relying on those who process our data to do so fairly.

Despite these valid concerns, Data Protection Law and Emotion argues that the (in)effectiveness of these laws are often more difficult to discern than the critical literature would suggest, while also emphasizing the importance of the conceptual value of subjective control. These points are explored (and indeed, exposed) by investigating data protection law through the lens of the insights provided by law and emotion scholarship and demonstrating the role emotions play in our decision-making. The book uses the development of Emotional Artificial Intelligence, a particularly controversial technology, as a case study to analyse these issues.

Original and insightful, Data Protection Law and Emotion offers a unique contribution to a contentious debate that will appeal to students and academics in data protection and privacy, policymakers, practitioners, and regulators.

Damian Clifford, Senior Lecturer, ANU College of Law

Damian Clifford is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the Australian National University. Previously a FWO Aspirant Fellow at KU Leuven’s Centre for IT and IP Law (CiTiP), his research focuses on privacy, data protection and technology regulation, and he has published across these fields. His books Data and Private Law (edited with Jeannie Marie Paterson and Kwan Ho Lau) and Data Protection Law and Emotion will be published in 2023 and 2024 respectively.