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Call for Papers and Use Cases

The Jean Monnet Chair in European Protection Law of Individuals in Relation to New Technologies – PROTECH (ERASMUS+ JEAN MONNET ACTIONS 611876-EPP-1-2019-1-IT-EPPJMO-CHAIR) granted at the Università degli Studi Suor Orsola Benincasa (Naples, Italy) will hold at the same University the PROTECH Workshop a.y. 2020/2021 entitled “Legal Design for Transparency in Consumer Contracts operating in online and offline environment”, on the following topics:

• “How can be implemented the transparency in consumer contracts in the online or offline environment?
•   “How can the banks and the big tech enterprise increase the trust of the client in the relationship with themselves most of all in online environment?”
• “What is the role of design thinking in relation to products and services innovation?”
• “How can the banks and the big tech enterprises adequately protect the consumers’ data most of all in the online environment?”
• “The banks and big tech enterprises can legally buy the consumers data and, if yes, which content must have the contract?”
• “How to ensure greater certainty of roles and legal situations in the relationships undertaken via the online platforms? How to tackle unfair commercial practices?”
• “What are the advantages and disadvantages of online dispute resolution (ODR) for consumers?”

The objective of the PROTECH Workshop a.y. 2020-2021 on “Legal Design for Transparency in Consumer Contracts operating in online and offline environment” is to straighten the protective approach in European Law regarding the relationship between individuals and technologies, with particular regard to consumer protection in the digital age, since the relationship with technologies could place them in a position of vulnerability even if they do not have disabilities.

The European Union is founded on the values of human dignity, equality, respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. In the internal market, the European Union promotes scientific and technological advances and deals with the interactions between science and technological development, as well as broad societal, ethical and fundamental rights issues, also in relation to vulnerable individuals, such us the consumer. Furthermore, over the last thirty years, the European Union has approved several legislative acts and recommendations to enforce the protection of individuals who are in a position of vulnerability compared to others, who could abuse their greater power over them in digital environments.

The first goal of this call is to create a contact between the Stakeholders of the European Business area, included the Consumers Associations, on the one hand, and the Academics of Italian and European area, on the other, who could try to give solutions to the questions put out by the first.

Therefore, the call is directed to the stakeholders (as banks, enterprises, industries with particular interest in technology development) and the academics who will have to discuss and/or propose solution to the questions listed above or other questions on the same topics.

More precisely, the workshop becomes the place where the Stakeholders can ask to the Academics how to solve some critical issues concerning their relationship with the consumers of their products and services, most of all when this relationship is carried out in the online environment.

At the same time, the call is directed to the Academics whose studies could offer concrete answers to the proposed questions.

As final result of the Workshop it will be published in the European Journal of Privacy Law & Technologies – EJPLT (www.ejplt.tatodpr.eu) the collection of the papers or case studies presented during the dialogue between the above mentioned categories that will take place at the PROTECH Workshop event on 28^th October 2021.

The a.y. 2020-2021 Workshop will put a particular emphasis on:

1. straightening the protective approach in European Law regarding the relationship between individuals and technologies, with particular regard to “Legal Design for Transparency in Consumer Contracts” but taking into account a more wide
2. encouraging Stakeholders, Professors, Researchers, Ph.D. candidates and Young Scholars, to respond to a widely accessible call for papers. The selected papers will be presented during the workshop and published in the European Journal of Privacy Law & Technologies (EJPLT);

strengthening the international exchange and the dialogue between Stakeholders and Academics on the workshop topics.