CIPIL Seminar: 'Profiled personalisation and citizen-consumer autonomy: In (all) "fairness" is change needed?': Damian Clifford

Damian Clifford, KU Leuven, will speak on the topic of "Profiled personalisation and citizen-consumer autonomy: In (all) “fairness” is change needed?"

This seminar will examine the role of fairness in data protection law and its relationship with the essence of the right to data protection and autonomous consumer decision-making. Building on this the role of consumer protection vis-a-vis the bolstering of individual control will be examined both in terms of the collection of personal data but also in terms of the effects of personalisation. In this vein, fairness as expressed in the Unfair Terms and the Unfair Commercial Practices Directives will be examined in conjunction with the fairness principle in data protection. Through this analysis, the seminar will outline substantive gaps and overlaps and highlight issues associated with the gradual alignment of the respective data protection and consumer protection policy agendas.

Damian Clifford is a doctoral researcher funded by Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek – Vlaanderen (FWO) at the KU Leuven Centre for IT and IP law (CiTiP). Before being awarded the FWO Aspirant Fellowship, he worked on FP7 and Horizon 2020 projects in the fields of critical infrastructure protection and cloud computing at CiTiP and also worked on a Flemish IWT-SBO project on personalised advertising at the University of Antwerp. Damian’s doctoral research is entitled “The Legal limits to the monetisation of online emotions” and will examine the legal issues surrounding the monetisation of online behaviour and emotions and the nudging or manipulation of internet users.