Online colloquium on the "Phenotyping of vulnerability in digital law" on 05.12.2025

On 5 December 2025, the Bonn research centre ForTech and the Dresden research project DESIGNATE hosted a one-day online colloquium on the topic of "Phenotyping vulnerability in digital law". The colloquium, hosted by JProf. Dr. Kaesling and Prof. Dr. Lauber-Rönsberg, took place as an interactive online meeting and brought together researchers from academia and practice.

You can find more information about the event held on 5.12.2025 here.

The colloquium focused on the question of how the legal concept of vulnerability can be conceptualized and legally operationalized in the context of digital legal regimes - especially in data protection, platform and AI law. The underlying assumptions of the concept of vulnerability, how it is concretized and what normative protective effects it has were discussed.

In four thematic blocks, the participants addressed vulnerability in data protection law, dark patterns in the Digital Services Act, vulnerability in AI law and questions of fairness and market regulation. The aim of the event was to systematically shed light on different manifestations of vulnerability and to develop cross-act protection concepts for the digital legal system.