Another “About Law in the World” gathering took place on 4 November 2020. This time, the meeting focused on the issue of data protection. We were fortunate to have with us CESL Teaching Assistant Erion Murati, who also lectures about EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Online Platforms at the University of Hamburg. The EU has been at the very forefront of data protection globally. The EU GDPR regulation from 2018 has subsequently influenced a number of countries in reforming their privacy and data protection laws. That also includes China.

Erion Murati startedby introducing the general objectives of GDPR and then moved to discuss particular legal solutions contained therein. In the following Q&A session, participants asked a number of interesting questions, including those related to right to be forgotten, data portability and the institution of a data protection officer.

We were also given a chance to reflect upon what we individually can do in order to better protect our data, in particular through giving an informed consent to the use of it each time when it is needed. That has become a very important issue – by way of example, it has been reported that nine out of ten Europeans have expressed concerns about mobile apps collecting their data without their consent, and seven out of ten worry about the potential use that companies may make of the information disclosed.