Digitalisation represents the peaceful revolution of the new millennium, exerting a profound impact on multiple dimensions of contemporary society. Among other effects, digital technologies transform data into complex and multifaceted elements of legal relationships. In this evolving economic and social landscape, EU lawmakers are likewise required to intervene. Practitioners, scholars, and students alike—albeit to varying degrees—encounter significant difficulties in understanding the many legal questions arising from the advent of digitalisation. Traditional legal categories, general principles, and foundational elements of European Union (and national) law are increasingly challenged by these innovations and require careful reconsideration. Numerous issues demand clarification today, while many others will need to be addressed in the near future; legal research is indispensable to this endeavor. The activities carried out within the Jean Monnet Module “di-re: digital revolution and the new european tools for services and markets”—j_m module parth (101085366)—constitute a small building block in the broader construction of these new digital legal frameworks. Fully aware of the complexity of the subject matter, this handbook does not aspire to exhaustiveness; rather, it aims to serve as an introductory guide for those wishing to explore the principles and essential EU instruments and case-law concerning digital data.
