Digital Wellbeing, Fairness and Vulnerability CPDP 2026

Digital Wellbeing, Fairness and Vulnerability The European Union is debating rules on minors’ protection, manipulative design, and platform responsibility. This panel connects three perspectives: wellbeing, fairness, and vulnerability to ask what enforceable standards and minimum duties could look like under the Digital Services Act, the Digital Fairness Act, and the AI Act, and what evidence would make them auditable. The panel will discuss addictive interface patterns (autoplay, infinite scroll, loot-box mechanics), building on the European Parliament’s work on protection of minors online, age assurance, and accountability for recommender systems. It will then connect these debates to fairness research on algorithmic decision-making and to data protection’s concept of vulnerability. The goal is to identify metrics, audit evidence, and remedies that regulators and platforms can apply while safeguarding autonomy, dignity, and fundamental rights, and to test whether these measures reduce harm. Questions to be answered: How can we conceptualise digital wellbeing in the EU law, at the intersection of existing tools (Consumer protection acquis, GDPR, AI Act and Digital Services Act) and to inform future law-making, especially the Digital Fairness Act? How can we operationalise vulnerability-sensitive design for online platforms? Can legal “simplification” efforts coexist with higher protections for human vulnerabilities in the online ecosystem? If prohibiting social media to minors is not “the” solution, what might/should we do? Organised by eLaw Leiden University / RESOCIAL Project with Gianclaudio Malgieri (moderator), Nina Baranowska, Helen Vossen, Alexandra Geese, Christos Floros More information: https://cpdp.be/124341