Data Law

Our society is experiencing a new industrial revolution that is deeply transforming our economic, social and legal institutions. While information and communication technologies have already become ubiquitous in our lives, advanced methods of statistical analysis and artificial intelligence are increasingly shaping the entire spectrum of our activities, including the ways we socialize, work, travel, and interact with our environment. This revolution is built around one notion: data! The course of Data Law introduces students to these new exciting topics. On the one hand, it studies how state law and non-state tools regulate data processing activities and the application and technologies built on top of them (e.g., algorithms). On the other hand, the course studies the role of ‘law as data’ by exploring the use and application of AI methods in the field of law.

The course adopts a transnational and interdisciplinary perspective covering regulation in Belgium, Europe and selected key jurisdictions (e.g., US, China, Brazil), and incorporates technical elements from informatics and data science. The course is project-based: students will deliver a practical output through which they should show to have acute legal knowledge and be conversant with data regulation (notably GDPR) and new technologies. The course will be delivered by the coordinator and multiple guest speakers. 

1. The student understands the key legal, technical, and socio-economic issues at stake with the use and processing of data.
2. The student masters the key concepts, structure and methodology of international/European/Belgian Data Protection Law.
3. The student can apply data protection and privacy laws to complex cases.
4. The student understands the key aspects governing data in other branches of law as well as the liability regimes.
5. The students discern the multifaceted dimensions of data
6. Students understand the key technical aspects of the role of information technologies (e.g. artificial intelligence and blockchain) in the processing personal data.

Connaissances et compétences pré-requises ou co-requises

BA in Law

Each session will consist of a lecture delivered by the coordinator/guest speaker and one or several interactive questions.

Lecture: The main objective of the lecture method is knowledge transfer, for instance, in relation to the foundations of the course such as e-privacy or GDPR. The lectures will draw on a predefined corpus of legislation, case law and scholarly contributions covering the EU and national countries (including Belgium) and comparative law from non-EU countries.

Interactive questions: practical cases and transversal case studies seek to equip students with analytical and argumentation skills to solve concrete problems, for instance, the implementation of a GDPR compliance program, comment of a court decision, or the review of a dataset subject to litigation. The case studies will vary from to year to year and will connect, when possible, to current events.

Support(s) de cours

• Université virtuelle

Contacts

Teaching Assistant: Sébastien Meeùs 

Campus

Solbosch

Méthode(s) d'évaluation

• Examen écrit
• Travail de groupe

Examen écrit

Travail de groupe

Construction de la note (en ce compris, la pondération des notes partielles)

60% group work 
40% individual assignment/exam
 

Langue(s) d'évaluation

• anglais