'Platforms as Privacy Regulators' - Joris van Hoboken: CIPIL Seminar

Professor Joris van Hoboken (Professor of Law, LSTS, Vrije Universiteit Brussel & Senior Researcher, IViR, University of Amsterdam) spoke on the topic of "Platforms as Privacy Regulators" at a seminar on 21 November 2019. In this talk I will explore the developments and legal consequences of different types of platforms being asked and incentivized to start acting as privacy regulators, setting standards (policy and technical) for the collection and use of personal information by their business users and policing these business users on the basis of these policies. First, I will explain the emergence of platforms as privacy regulators with examples from the United States and conceptually, focusing in particular on the context of smartphone ecosystems. I will show how this development currently challenges other regulatory imperatives, including the calls on platforms to act fairly and transparently vis a vis business users. I will finish by discussing legal developments in Europe related to the concept of (joint) controller and what this means for the application of data protection law to cloud-based service environments and the regulatory role of platforms. For more information see the CIPIL website at http://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk