On 23 and 24 October, eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies hosted the 2025 edition of Privacy Law Scholars Conference Europe at Leiden Law School. Over two days, participants discussed more than 40 work-in-progress papers, with materials available to participants ahead of time. The conference welcomed nearly 100 participants from five continents.
About PLSC Europe
PLSC Europe is a workshop-based conference focused on developing ongoing scholarship in privacy and data protection. A discussant opens each workshop, followed by a substantive and constructive conversation with the paper's author and the audience. Several authors also double up as discussants on other attendees' papers, boosting synergies across the sessions and growing PLSC Europe as a community. The 2025 edition took place at the Kamerlingh Onnes Building, Leiden Law School.
Themes and discussions
Across parallel sessions, authors and discussants addressed topics such as supervision and enforcement for AI systems, cross-border access to data, GDPR enforcement practice, platform governance, children's rights, biometrics, and automated decision-making. The full programme listed eight sessions over the two days, with a total of 45 papers being discussed.
The conference was organised by Gianclaudio Malgieri, Associate Professor, and Gavin Robinson, Assistant Professor at Leiden Law School. Members of the PLSC Standing Committee took part in the Leiden edition and in the selection process for the policy awards.
Top Policy Provocation Awards
Three papers received the Top Policy Provocation Award for the 2025 edition:
- Ruoxin Su - Beyond Individual Privacy: A Layered Model to Reassess the Legal Nature of Genetic Data
- Joanna Mazur, Claudio Novelli & Zuzanna Choińska - How Experienced Are Data Protection Authorities in Enforcement Concerning AI? Lessons for the Enforcement System of the AI Act
- Johan David Michels, Ian Walden, Christopher Millard & Ulrich Wuermeling - Beyond Schrems: The Unresolved Tensions Between US Government Access and the GDPR
Gianclaudio Malgieri and Gavin Robinson 
Michael Veale, Gloria Gonzales Fuster and Ruoxin Su 
Johan David Michels and Ian Walden 
Gloria Gonzales Fuster, Joanna Mazur and Michael Veale
These awards recognise papers with strong policy relevance. The selected authors will have the opportunity to present their work in Brussels in January 2026 at CPDP's Data Protection Day.
During this year's event, it was announced that the next edition of PLSC Europe will be hosted by the Centre for IT & IP Law (CiTiP) at KU Leuven in autumn 2026. See you there!
