Dr. Joanna Mazur visits LSTS

In June dr Joanna Mazur from the University of Warsaw visited LSTS. Dr Mazur presented her current work on data protection and cross-border transfers in regional trade agreements in a WRG session that took place on June 22. During this session, she introduced a paper, co-authored by professor Magdalena Słok-Wódkowska, titled: 'Between commodification and protection of personal data: regulatory models governing cross-border information transfers in regional trade agreements'. In the paper, the authors scrutinise an ambivalent role that regional trade agreements play in the process of facilitating personal data commodification while also providing tools for privacy and personal data protection, from the perspective of Karl Polanyi’s theory of double movement. They analyse the provisions on cross-border information transfers and on data protection in order to establish what are the models of balancing between the notion of personal data commodification and social protection, understood as strengthening the measures which facilitate privacy and personal data protection.

The visit and the paper are the elements of conducting a research project titled 'International economic law in the era of digital transition: trends, regulatory models, and specific solutions concerning e-commerce and data' (PI: dr hab. Magdalena Słok-Wódkowska), funded by National Science Centre, Poland (grant number 2019/35/B/HS5/02107). For the results, see, e.g., text 'Secrecy by Default: How Regional Trade Agreements Reshape Protection of Source Code' (Journal of International Economic Law, 2022, 25(1), pp. 91–109).