The Legal Challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution - The European Union's Digital Strategy

This book explores the concept of a fourth industrial revolution as an expression of the current technological, economic, and social changes sparked by the growing interconnectivity and intelligent automation that have emerged in the 21st century. It seeks to identify and explain the legal challenges posed by this phenomenon in four main areas: content, economy, security, and people.

Part I, Content, considers e.g. the problems posed by new uses of protected works in the digital environment, and the new rules on liability for intermediary services contained in the Digital Services Act.

Part II, Economy, is particularly concerned with the regulation of Big Tech in the EU's Digital Markets Act, ecommerce and EU consumers' rights, the taxation of online platforms, and digital advertising.

Part III, Security, addresses the European Union Strategy for Cybersecurity, the use of biometric data systems and facial recognition technologies for law enforcement purposes, and the security implications of the Proposal for an EU Regulation on Artificial Intelligence, as well as the challenges entailed by the European Union's positioning itself as a major cyber defence actor.

Part IV, People, discusses the Data Protection Litigation System under the GDPR, the right to disconnect from work, the proposed EU Catalogue of Fundamental Digital Rights, the countering of terrorist propaganda online through the TERREG and the DSA, and AI and Fundamental Rights.

Dário Moura Vicente is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, Portugal, where he has taught, over the past 30 years, Private International Law, Comparative Law, Civil Law, Information Society Law and Intellectual Property Law. He is also the Chairman of the Portuguese Society for Intellectual Property Law (Associação Portuguesa de Direito Intelectual) and the Chairman of the Lisbon Centre for Research in Private Law (CIDP) (Centro de Investigação de Direito Privado), whose research line on Private Law in the Digital Era he coordinates.
Sofia de Vasconcelos Casimiro is a Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, Portugal and at the Portuguese Military Academy, teaching, inter alia, information technology and law. She has taught at NATO Communications and Information Systems School (NCISS), European Security and Defence College (ESDC) and European Defence Agency (EDA). Sofia is also a lawyer and, as a legal advisor, has provided advise in ICT law to the Ministry of National Defence, the Ministry of Justice and big tech companies, including some of the Big Five. She works with the Portuguese Army in cybersecurity and cyber defence, is a member of the Board of Directors of the Portuguese Society for Intellectual Property Law and a member of the Lisbon Centre for Research in Private Law (CIDP) (Centro de Investigação de Direito Privado).
Chen Chen is a Guest Lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, Portugal, a lawyer at Vieira de Almeida & Associados - Sociedade de Advogados SP RL (VdA) and a researcher at the Lisbon Centre for Research in Private Law (CIDP) (Centro de Investigação de Direito Privado).