The Role of Data Protection in the Age of AI
My conversation with Paul Nemitz about drafting the GDPR, the Digital Omnibus, AI challenges, and the role of data protection in the age of AI | Edition #269
To celebrate Data Privacy Day, I sat down with Paul Nemitz to discuss the role of data protection in the age of AI.
Paul is one of the most respected figures in European Data Protection Law, having worked at the European Commission for 35 years.
He was the Principal Advisor on Strategies of Justice Policy and Digitalization in the European Commission and, among many other interesting things, he was one of the people who helped draft the GDPR - the European General Data Protection Regulation.
In our one-hour conversation, I asked him about the challenges of drafting the GDPR, the importance of data protection nowadays, the reasons behind Europe’s recent political and legal shift on AI (a topic I have covered multiple times in this newsletter), the Digital Omnibus, the EU AI Act, the relationship between protecting fundamental rights and democracy, AI-related challenges, and more.
If you are interested in data protection and AI, do not miss our conversation:
Video chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
02:12 - Drafting the GDPR
07:40 - Data protection in Europe
11:04 - The European political and legal shift
16:31 - The Digital Omnibus
27:44 - The future of data protection
34:50 - AI and data rights
39:55 - The Brussels Effect
43:12 - Fundamental rights and the EU AI Act
51:26 - Data protection and democracy
59:38 - It's time to engage
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As the old internet dies, polluted by low-quality AI-generated content, you can always find raw, pioneering, human-made thought leadership here. Thank you for helping me make this a leading publication in the field!




