Congratulations to the winners of the 2026 Stefano Rodotà Award!
The Jury of the Stefano Rodotà Award, composed of the members of the Bureau of the Committee of Convention 108, has selected the winners of the 2026 Stefano Rodotà Award:
- PhD thesis category: Natalia Menéndez González for her thesis "Cultured Proportionality: Navigating the EU's Fragmented Facial Recognition Landscape"
- Article Category: Timothée Charmeil for his article “When AI Turns Emotion into Data: The Gaps in EU Law”
Cultured Proportionality: Navigating the EU's Fragmented Facial Recognition Landscape (Natalia Menéndez González)
The thesis discusses the application of the proportionality principle to the use of Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) within the European Union (EU). It does so by conducting an empirical study of 48 opinions and decisions on the lawfulness of the use of FRT by selected regional and national Data Protection Authorities (DPAs), Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS). This study is interwoven with material from expert interviews conducted with 25 (former) members of the selected regional and national DPAs, the EDPB and the EDPS. The thesis takes as a working assumption that the current EU legal framework applied to FRT would benefit from additional protection against human and fundamental rights violations arising from the use of this technology, particularly, but not only, the rights to privacy and data protection. Because of this, this thesis discusses the application of the proportionality principle, a legal principle traditionally invoked to challenge excessive or discretionary action, to the use of FRT. It does so by building a theoretical framework around the principle of proportionality, discussing its enforcement by supervisory authorities and proposing a novel interpretation of the principle as an accountability tool. It also describes the normative framework for applying the proportionality principle to the use of FRT. It empirically studies how the cultural idiosyncrasies of the different Member States affect their stance towards FRT in general and its proportionality in particular, and whether the EDPB and the EDPS play any uniformising role in the consistent application of the data protection regulation to FRT throughout the EU. Finally, it concludes on whether it is possible to lawfully use FRT by applying the proportionality principle, what the current practice of DPAs is, and the consistency issues it entails at the EU level.
About the Author
Dr. Natalia Menéndez González is a Research Associate on data governance at the Centre for a Digital Society of the European University Institute and Assistant Professor and Director of the Minor in Digital Law & AI Law at CUNEF University. She is also a visiting researcher at the Biometrics Law Lab of the Center for IT & IP Law at the KU Leuven Faculty of Law and Criminology, a co-founder of The DigiCon blog, and a former vice-chair of the PhD students in AI Ethics research group. She holds a PhD in Law and an LLM from the European University Institute and she has been a guest lecturer at the School of Transnational Governance and the Universities of Turin, York (Canada), Dresden and Toronto. She has numerous publications on the intersection between Law and Technology on diverse outlets including Interactive Entertainment Law Review, Communication Law Review or Digital Society and has co-edited the volume "Next Democratic Frontiers for Facial Recognition Technology" (2025) published by Springer.
When AI Turns Emotion into Data: The Gaps in EU Law (Timothée Charmeil)
This article, published in the Journal of AI Law and Regulation (AIRe), forms part of a broader research project exploring emotion as a novel category of data requiring legal protection. While legal scholarship has increasingly examined the role of emotions within the legal system through the prism of emotions experienced by the various stakeholders, emotion has yet to be conceptualized as a legal object in its own right, i.e. as the basis of a genuine law of emotions. The research seeks to address this gap by examining how existing legal frameworks respond to AI-based emotion recognition systems.
Building on a parallel analysis of the US legal framework published in Wolters Kluwer’s Journal of Internet Law, this article examines the protection afforded to emotional data under EU law, focusing on the EU AI Act and the GDPR. It argues that, while the AI Act includes provisions specifically addressing emotion recognition, it falls short of providing meaningful safeguards. The article therefore explores the protective capacity of the GDPR with respect to emotional data, finding that, while the GDPR offers some welcome safeguards, it remains insufficient to address the unique risks posed by emotion recognition technologies. Against this backdrop, the article advocates for a novel legal approach: a complete prohibition of emotion recognition systems for non-medical purposes, alongside a nuanced taxonomy regulating their use in medical contexts.
About the Author
Timothée Charmeil is a New York-qualified lawyer (CIPP/US, CIPP/E, CIPP/A, CIPM, AIGP) currently working at a New York law firm. He also serves as Country Correspondent for the Journal of AI Law and Regulation. He holds an LL.M. from Harvard Law School and is a graduate of the École Normale Supérieure and Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas.
