Editorial: Special Issue on Law and Governance in the Digital Era: Data Protection and Beyond

• Author: Magdalena Jozwiak - Lotte Anemaet - Jilles Hazenberg
• Position: PhD Candidate, VU Amsterdam - PhD Candidate, VU Amsterdam - PhD Candidate, University of Groningen
• Pages: 179-181

Editorial: Special Issue on Law and Governance in the Digital Era

2016

179

3

Editorial:

Special Issue on Law and

Governance in the Digital Era

Data Protection and Beyond

by Magdalena Jozwiak, Lotte Anemaet and Jilles Hazenberg

© 2016 Magdalena Jozwiak, Lo tte Anemaet and Jilles Hazenberg

Everybody may disseminate this ar ticle by electronic m eans and make it available for downloa d under the terms and

conditions of the Digital P eer Publishing Licence (DPPL). A copy of the license text may be obtain ed at http://nbn-resolving.

de/urn:nbn:de:0009-dppl-v3-en8.

Recommended citation: M. Joz wiak, L. Anemaet and J. Ha zenberg, Editorial: Sp ecial Issue on Law and Governance in the

Digital Era: Data Pr otection and Beyond, 7 (2016) JIPITEC 179, para 1.

A. Theme of the special issue

1

As noted by Lawrence Lessig in his seminal work

Code version 2.0, the cyberspace is governed through a

myriad of overlapping modalities: law, social norms,

code, and market.1 The contributions to this special

issue explore different approaches to the governance

of online content, and notably the ow of personal

data and its engagement with these modalities.

2

Although the regulation of the digital domain

remains a challenge, there is now a growing body

of norms and institutions engaging with this task.

In particular, in the European Union (EU) there is an

ongoing trend of reinforcing the fundamental right

to data protection, as guaranteed under Article 8 of

the EU Charter. Such a trend is evidenced not only

by the current reform of data protection law aimed

at modernizing the EU regulatory framework but

1 Lawrence Lessig, Code version 2.0, Basic Books, 2006.

also by the judicial activity in this eld, conrmed

in several recent judgments such as Digital Rights

Ireland2, Google Spain3 and Schrems.4 However, it

seems that regulating the internet with legal norms

is being constantly challenged by the inherent

characteristics of the online world. The global

scope, massive scale of content exchange and data

collection, and the relative anonymity of internet

users stand out. Moreover, legal norms cannot keep

up with the speed of technological innovations. This

constellation arguably further complicates effective

governance of online content. Thus, in an attempt to

safeguard the European standards of protection of

the fundamental right to data protection online, it

is worth exploring alternative modes of governance,

such as standardization or promotion of certain

social norms, and to look beyond traditional legal

actors and mechanisms.

2 Digital Rights Ireland, C-293/12.

3 Google Spain, C-131/12.

4 Schrems, C-362/14.

Magdalena Jozwiak, PhD Candidate, VU Amsterdam (m.e.jozwiak@vu.nl)

Lotte Anemaet, PhD Candidate, VU Amsterdam (l.anemaet@vu.nl)

Jilles Hazenberg, PhD Candidate, University of Groningen (j.l.j.hazenberg@rug.nl).

We would like to thank Michiel Duchateau, Aurelia Colombi Ciacchi, and Martin Senftleben for their help and sup-

port.