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The Clinic: Digilaw

The objective of DIGILAW is to train and work with law students to find concrete solutions to a practical problem:

How can the values and rights needed to sustain democracies and the common good be upheld and ensured in our digital world?
What is the role of the law in this environment where technologies, infrastructures, big players and users themselves construct normativities beyond the law itself?

Indeed, from the early decentralized infrastructure of the Internet, that held the promise of a space independent of the tyrannies of the Governments of the Industrial world, the Internet is now largely dominated by seven technology companies whose business practices, and AI intermediated decision-making, can be harmful for society and democracy. It has also become a tool that can facilitate discrimination, reinforce inequalities, unleash hate speech and disinformation, and allow for censorship and increased surveillance by governments.
Awareness is hence growing that in cyberspace, as in real space, safeguarding rights and sustaining order to protect the common good is crucial.

DIGILAW will involve teams of students and researchers working on action-research projects addressing these issues, designed in collaboration with a range of partners from civil society, public institutions and private actors.

The DIGILAW clinic is funded as part of the New Digital Rule of Law project with Project Liberty’s Institute (former McCourt Institute).

Pedagogical team

The DIGILAW clinic programme is taught in English and is coordinated by :

Klaudia Klonowska, postdoctoral researcher, teacher and coordinator of the DIGILAW clinic programme
Anamaría Muñoz, doctoral student, teacher and coordinator of the DIGILAW clinic programme
Beatriz Botero Arcila, academic supervisor and lecturer of the required DIGILAW clinic course
Marta Arisi, doctoral student and tutor
Lyubomir Nikiforov, PhD Researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel / Brussels Privacy Hub and tutor

Projects 2025-2026

Generative artificial intelligence (IA) tools are rapidly being integrated into everyday life, with new consumer-facing services and use cases emerging almost daily. Among them, “AI companions,” chatbots designed to simulate human relationships through conversational, emotional and lifelike interactions, raise particularly acute consumer protection concerns.

In partnership with the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), the project will examine how generative AI companions used in the European Union (EU) are currently regulated and where protection gaps remain. Students analyse the main AI companion services available to European consumers and the risks of material and immaterial harm they pose. They will conduct a review and further analyse relevant EU rules, including data protection, consumer law, product safety and the emerging AI Act framework, and systematically collect case law, regulatory decisions and other enforcement actions in the EU and worldwide involving generative AI, with a particular focus on AI companions.

Importantly, alongside this legal work, students carry out exploratory testing of selected AI companion apps, following a research protocol. They will analyse how these systems are marketed, how they interact with users, languages and age groups, and whether their design or responses may breach EU rules such as the AI Act, the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive or the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This empirical component helps identify concrete patterns of misleading, unsafe or exploitative practices.

The project’s aim is to elaborate a report, to be finalised by the end of the academic semester in 2026, that synthesises the legal and empirical findings. The report highlights trends in harms and enforcement, identify regulatory blind spots and propose recommendations to strengthen consumer protection and enforcement strategies in relation to generative AI companions. Students will present and discuss their conclusions with BEUC staff, contributing directly to ongoing advocacy and awareness-raising efforts on harmful AI practices in the EU.

Partner: European Consumer Organisation (BEUC)
Tutor: Lyubomir Nikiforov

Partner: Authors and Composers French Syndicate (SNAC)
Tutor: Marta Arisi

Past projects

Advancing information transparency: DIGILAW clinic programme and IViR examine public access to harmonized standards

On 11th February 2025, students from DIGILAW clinic programme participated in a research exchange at the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam, engaging in a comparative legal analysis on public access to harmonized safety standards within the European regulatory framework.

Read our article.