The Regulation of Digital Technologies in the EU: Act-Ification, Gdpr Mimesis and EU Law Brutality at Play

This book identifies three phenomena which are common to all EU digital technologies-relevant regulatory initiatives: act-ification, GDPR mimesis and regulatory brutality. These three phenomena serve as indicators or early signs of a new European technology law-making paradigm that by now seems ready to emerge.

Vagelis Papakonstantinou is Professor of Personal Data Protection Law at the Faculty of Law & Criminology of the Free University of Brussels (VUB, Vrije Universiteit Brussel), focusing on cybersecurity, intellectual property and the broader topic of technology regulation. He works through the Cyber and Data Security Lab, for which he is the scientific coordinator, as well as through VUB’s Research Group on Law Science Technology & Society (LSTS) and the Brussels Privacy Hub.

Paul de Hert is Professor at the Faculty of Law & Criminology at the VUB and an associate professor at the Law School/Tilburg Institute for Law and Technology (TILT), University of Tilburg. He is Director of the VUB’s Research Group on Human Rights, Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Law & Criminology, and a former director of the LSTS and of the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Law.