What is the public interest in the EU digital rulebook?

  • Panel
  • Class Room
  • Wednesday 20.05 — 10:30 - 11:45

Organising Institution

Law Department, University of Turin

Italy

The Department of Law is the Law School of the University of Torino. It traces its roots back to the founding of the University of Torino, in the Fifteen Century, and nurtured or hosted some of the most outstanding legal scholars, judges and statesmen in Italian history. The Department of Law is nowadays one of the leading law departments in Europe, with particular strengths in the fields of comparative law and international law and a large offer in international exchange programs with a number of the world's leading research universities. The Department of Law of the University of Torino is the winner of a five-year funding provided by the Ministry of Education for the 2023-2027 Excellence Departments (being recognized among the best fifteen law Departments in Italy).
  • Academic 2
  • Business 2
  • Policy 2
The complex interplay of the GDPR, DSA, Data Act, and AI Act draws a tension to the crucial notion of public interest. Although widely invoked in data governance, public interest lacks nonetheless a unified definition, shifting across legal-philosophical traditions policy and competing visions. Building on a theoretical framework rooted in nearly a decade of GDPR practice, the discussion examines how newer regulations reinterpret public interest when addressing platform governance, data sharing, and AI oversight. Particular attention is given to how these instruments respond to individual and structural vulnerabilities, and to the tension between regulatory flexibility and eGective protection. The panel assesses mechanisms for coherence and accountability across Europe’s digital rulebook, asking how robust enforcement and oversight can be ensured without drifting toward deregulation or weakening fundamental rights.

Questions to be answered

  1. How should public interest be defined across Europe’s digital rulebook, given the differing philosophical and regulatory foundations that shape its various instruments?
  2. How do these instruments address individual and structural vulnerabilities so far, and where do gaps or unintended burdens remain?
  3. What mechanisms can strengthen coherence, enforcement, and oversight across Europe’s digital rulebook, ensuring that the public interest reinforces rather than weakens fundamental-rights safeguards?
  4. How can the EU reconcile the data-economy business model with a feasible and enforceable conception of public interest in practice?

Moderator

Ludovica Paseri

Law Department, University of Turin - Italy

Ludovica Paseri is a postdoctoral researcher at the Law Department of the University of Turin. In her research Dr. Paseri focuses on data governance and open science policies, with particular attention to privacy and data protection, AI regulation, and the interaction between law, technology, and society.

Speaker

Sofia Ranchordás

Tilburg Law School - Netherlands

Sofia Ranchordas is a Full Professor of Administrative Law at Tilburg Law School. She also holds a part-time appointment as a Professor of Public Law, Innovation, and Sustainability at Luiss Guido Carli in Rome. In 2022, she was awarded a five-year NWO-Vidi project to conduct research on vulnerability in the automated state from a comparative perspective. Ranchordas is interested in the power asymmetries between government and citizens, how digital technology can exacerbate or create new vulnerabilities in the interactions between citizens and governments, and how to empower individuals either through more empathic approaches to law or to technology. Her scholarship has been published in leading law journals, such as Computer Law & Security and Duke Law Journal, as well as with Oxford University Press and Cambridge University. Ranchordás’ book Introduction to Law and Regulation, 2nd edition (with Karen Yeung) was published in December 2024 with Cambridge University Press.

Speaker

Teodora Groza

Faculty of Law, University of Tübingen - Germany

Speaker

Veronique Ciminà

Directorate-General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology, European Commission - Belgium

Veronique Cimina is a Case handler and Legal Officer in the Digital Services Unit of ‘Risk Management and User Rights’ of the Directorate-General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology at the European Commission, where she contributes to the supervision, enforcement and monitoring of the Digital Services Act (DSA). Prior to that, Veronique worked as a Legal Officer in the Policy and Consultation Unit at the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), where she provided advice to the European Commission and other EU Institutions and Bodies on legislative and policy proposals regarding data protection. Before that, she was a legal intern in the Supervision and Enforcement Unit at the EDPS and a legal assistant in private practice in Rome.

Speaker

Laura Caroli

Women in AI Belgium - International

Laura Caroli is an independent expert on AI governance, working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and public policy. She serves as Ambassador of Women in AI Belgium and is a former Senior Fellow at the Wadhwani AI Center at CSIS in Washington, DC, where she focused on AI governance and regulation from a transatlantic perspective. Prior to that, she served as Senior Policy Advisor to MEP Brando Benifei at the European Parliament for ten years, where she led the technical negotiations on the EU AI Act. Before joining the European Parliament, she worked at the Intelligence Foresight Committee of the Italian Parliament and the think tank Italianieuropei. She holds a PhD in Geopolitics from the University of Trieste. She now works as an independent expert on AI governance.