Most technology-related regulations are drafted from the perspective of the systems being regulated. This area of research, however, starts from the opposite end: who bears the costs of these technologies, whose rights are at stake, and whether the legislation we draft is even suitable for this task.
One approach is empirical and rights-based. Digital technologies distribute harm unequally. Technology-enabled gender-based violence—unconsented images, online hate, political violence against women—affects some people far more severely than others, and legal responses to these issues have developed rapidly and unevenly. Social security systems that collect data on the people who depend on them raise questions about privacy and data justice that are very different from those posed in affluent markets. Copyright determines who has access to knowledge and culture and who does not. And rules are drafted differently across the globe depending on enforcement capacity, market size, and political circumstances. We approach these issues from an intersectional perspective and using examples from outside Europe, particularly from Brazil.
The other approach considers technology law at a meta-level: Should legislation focus on technological categories or on what technologies do and the risks they entail? Are technology-specific regulations a permanent part of the legal order, or a temporary phenomenon that will eventually be absorbed back into general law? The DSA, the AI Act and several other EU digital laws already overlap and are duplicative in some respects, raising the question how to streamline technology law going forward.
The overlap between the DSA and the AI Act, and the Swiss KomPG currently under development; Brazilian internet and copyright legislation, including the Marco Civil and the current debate on copyright reform; international processes in the areas of freedom of expression and gender equality, including contributions to the UN special procedures; the rules governing access to knowledge in museums, archives, and libraries; and the broader discussion, both in legislative bodies and in academia, regarding whether technology-specific legislation should become permanent.
Valente, Online Misogyny in Brazil: Law, Internet Governance, and the Struggle for Gender Justice (Springer, 2025, open access)
Valente, Online gender-based violence in Brazil: new data insights, CIGI Safer Internet Paper no. 4 (2023)
Valente, Presa na rede de proteção social: privacidade, gênero e justiça de dados no Programa Bolsa Família, Novos Estudos CEBRAP (2021)
Valente & Neris, O corpo é o código: estratégias jurídicas de enfrentamento ao revenge porn no Brasil (InternetLab)
Valente, A construção do direito autoral no Brasil
Buiten & Ledger, DSA Implementation Forum: Protection of Minors (CERRE Report, 2025)
Buiten, Vielfaltssicherung auf Interaktionsplattformen, in: Hofmann (Hrsg.), Marktermöglichung durch Recht im Digitalen Zeitalter (Duncker & Humblot, 2022)
Gabison & Buiten, Platform Liability in Copyright Enforcement, Columbia Science and Technology Law Review, Vol. 21(2): 237-280 (2020)
Senftleben, Kerk, Buiten & Heine, New Rights or New Business Models? An Inquiry into the Future of Publishing in the Digital Era, IIC - International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law, Vol. 48(5): 538-561 (2017)