Professor Marina Timoteo, Professor of law at University of Bologna, Director of AlmaLaurea Interuniversity Consortium & Deputy Director of the Interuniversity Research Centre for Comparative Law, delivered a lecture on the Regulating Data Property Issues: the EU Perspective to the students on Haidian Campus on the evening of 27 May, 2024.

The lecture was held online and on-site. Director of the Academic Committee of the College Prof. Fei Anling moderated the lecture. A/Prof. Wu Lan from the School of Juris Master of CUPL, Lecturer Zhang Ying from the Academy for Date Law of CUPL and Lecturer Xu Jianbo from the College were the commentators.

Timoteo took the controversy over the legal nature of data as a starting point and analysed the legal challenges involved in data as property rights. She introduced the development of European data property rights, and analysed the EU's legislative system and regulatory measures in the field of data property rights law. Finally, Timoteo shared her views on EU data governance and data sharing concepts, summarising the EU's changes and future trends in data protection legislation.

During the discussion, Wu pointed out that the EU's prior practice has given up the ownership of data in favour of data access rights for users, which has implications for China’s current separation of powers data legislative model. Zhang compared the legislative practice of data property rights in China and Europe, and said that the development of digital economy urgently needs legislators to adopt brand-new norms to solve the property rights problem. Xu shared her views on the protection of employees' personal information and data, pointing out that specific measures should be taken to protect labour-related data.