✨ New episode drop: Special Category Is… ✨
World Pride?
More like World Data Pride — and Data & The City is taking a closer look at what happens when LGBTQIA+ identity meets data, technology, social media and AI.

From understanding what makes LGBTQIA+ data so sensitive, to exploring the digital spaces where communities find one another, this World Pride special looks at the complicated relationship between visibility, community and privacy.

💬 Featured in our episode: 🏳️‍🌈 Special Category Is...
on LGBTQIA+ data, special category data, why information about sexual orientation and gender identity receives additional protection, and what happens when technology can infer deeply personal information rather than simply asking us for it.

📱 Digital Safe Spaces: Interview with Siân Brooke
We interview Sian Brooke on the role social media and digital platforms play in helping LGBTQIA+ people find community, support and representation — and what censorship, moderation and proposed social media restrictions could mean for those spaces.

🎉 Happy World Pride Data Darlings
on Pride, visibility and what it means to celebrate LGBTQIA+ communities in a world where being seen can be both empowering and vulnerable.

From rainbow flags to digital footprints, this episode explores what happens when the technology that helps us find our community can also reveal us to the world — and asks the question: In a digital world where being seen can be both liberation and vulnerability, who gets to decide how we're seen?

If you want to read more about Siân Brooke's work, visit her webpage here: www.sianbrooke.com 
If you want to read the paper referenced in Siân's interview, you can find it here: https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/62988/chapter-abstract/571166787?redirectedFrom=fulltext 

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🏳️‍🌈 A Moment for World Pride

Before we begin our World Pride special, Special Category Is…, we wanted to pause.

Following the awful incident at World Pride Berlin, we felt it was important to take a moment to remember those affected and to acknowledge that, while Pride is a celebration of love, identity, community and visibility, there are still people who face violence simply for being who they are.So this isn't an episode introduction, a chapter or a discussion.It's simply a moment of silence.A moment to remember.

A moment to reflect.And a reminder of why Pride still matters.

🏳️‍🌈 We stand with the LGBTQIA+ community.

🎮🚨 New Episode Drop! 🚨🎮
Our latest episode You Don’t Own Me has officially landed — and data darling, it’s serving controller couture, AI plot twists, digital drama, and a reality check worthy of a final boss battle.

There I was, controller in hand, ready to escape into another virtual world. But somewhere between digital downloads, endless updates, AI-powered gameplay and "Accept Terms & Conditions," I realised something had quietly changed. And I couldn’t help but wonder… when did buying a game stop meaning you actually owned it?

In this episode of Data & The City, we press start on one of gaming’s biggest transformations. From digital ownership and data harvesting to eye tracking, artificial intelligence and the laws trying to keep pace, we're exploring what happens when our favourite hobby becomes one of the most fascinating conversations in privacy and technology.

This episode’s chapters:
🎮 Player One, Terms Apply — From couch co-op and memory cards to online accounts, digital storefronts and AI-powered experiences, we explore how gaming quietly transformed from something we owned into something we increasingly access.
🎙️ The Eye Of The Beholder — We sit down with Michael Raschke, founder of Blickshift, to explore eye tracking in gaming, what it means for accessibility and immersion, and why our gaze may become one of the most valuable forms of data in the next generation of games.
⚖️ You Don’t Own Me — We unpack the real-world headlines shaping the future of gaming: PlayStation lawsuits, AI-generated games, massive data collections, copyright battles, dynamic pricing, the AI Act, the GDPR, the rest of the Digital Decade and what every gamer can do to stay in control of their digital life.

🎧 Available now wherever you get your podcasts.

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🚨 New Episode Drop! 🚨
Our latest episode My Fair LAIdy has officially landed — and data darling, it's serving artificial intelligence, fabulous etiquette, and one very important question: can we really teach algorithms good manners?

 There I was, sitting in a Brussels hotel bar after an evening at the opera, watching My Fair Lady flicker across the television. As Eliza Doolittle learned society's rules one etiquette lesson at a time, I couldn't help but wonder... if we're all trying to teach AI how to behave, whose manners are we teaching it?

In this episode of Data & The City, we step into a world of fairness, bias, and ethical AI. From the researchers trying to define what "fair" really means, to the companies building the technology that increasingly shapes our lives, this episode is your chic guide to understanding why trustworthy AI is about so much more than clever algorithms.

✨ This episode's chapters:

👒 The Algorithm’s Etiquette Lessons — We explore the surprisingly complicated world of AI fairness, bias, and ethics, asking whether algorithms inherit our imperfections—and what happens when they do.

🎙️ People Are The Y: Interview with Tomás Enrique León — We sit down with Tomás León to discuss building trustworthy AI, why fairness is about more than just data, and what startups, businesses, and everyday users can do to keep AI accountable 

💄 My Fair LAIdy — We take a stroll through the latest research on AI fairness, unpacking what leading researchers have discovered and sharing practical tips for our Data Darlings and #BossBabes alike. 

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🚨 NEW EPISODE DROP: GlastonData — CPDP Day 3 🚨

And data darling… Brussels has officially entered its finale era. ✨🎪

There I was, sitting outside the CPDP venue on the final morning with an iced matcha in hand, sunglasses hiding the consequences of the afterparty, and a tote bag full of crumpled notes, business cards, and unresolved feelings about AI. Around me, the festival energy had shifted, slower steps, softer conversations, and that unmistakable Day Three mix of exhaustion and reflection.

And I couldn’t help but wonder… after three days of panels, policy drama, networking, and digital existentialism — what are we actually taking home from Europe’s most fashionable privacy festival? Because Day Three at CPDP didn’t wind down… it softened into meaning. AI warfare, mental privacy, surveillance capitalism, adtech empires, digital sovereignty — the topics were still huge. But underneath it all sat a quieter question: how do we stay human in systems designed to predict, profile, and optimise us? So today, data darlings, we’re stepping into the final stretch of CPDP — the afterglow edition. The last panels, lingering debates, and post-festival reflections heading back through Brussels airport security...

In this episode:

🎪 The Rights Erosion Era Tour We’re joined by Itxaso Domínguez de Olazábal, on surveillance, design, and digital rights. She explores Europe’s shift from rights-first regulation to “competitiveness” — and what gets lost in the process.

⚔️ The Security Line at the AI Festival We’re joined by Frank Slijper (PAX), on AI, war, and surveillance. He examines how AI is reshaping warfare — and what that means for civilians, accountability, and power.

🎤 No VIP Access for Unchecked AI We close with Wojciech Wiewiórowski, on AI safeguards and high-risk systems. He asks what it really takes to govern AI before it outruns its safeguards.

🎧 CPDP Day 3 — The Afterglow Edition Neural data, AI warfare, digital euro debates, adtech power, workplace surveillance — Day Three moved across stages but kept circling one question: what does power look like when it becomes data?

Because at CPDP, even the afterparty has a policy angle...and I couldn’t help but wonder… is privacy the last thing still fully ours? ✨

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🚨 NEW EPISODE DROP: Burning Data Man 🚨
And data darling… CPDP officially entered its after-dark festival era✨🎪

There I was, balancing a pistachio croissant, a homemade iced tea, and a rapidly declining phone battery while sprinting between panels like I was chasing overlapping headline acts at Europe’s most intellectually glamorous music festival.

Everywhere I looked: fabulous festival fits, tote bags multiplying at dangerous speed, AI debates before noon, and policy people discussing digital sovereignty with the same emotional intensity normally reserved for backstage festival gossip. And I couldn’t help but wonder… when did privacy conferences stop feeling like conferences and start feeling like full-blown cultural events? In this episode of Data & The City, we head back into the CPDP festival grounds for Day Two — where AI regulation, emotional algorithms, academic burnout, digital rights, and policy drama all collided beneath the Brussels festival lights.

This episode’s chapters:

🎓 Backstage Passes and Burnout Crashes
Pia Groenewolt joins us to unpack academia, precarity, institutional pressure, and what healthier academic spaces could actually look like behind the polished conference panels and intellectual glamour.

🎨 The AI-Situationship Stage:
Interview with Joel Baumann, Laura Därr, Lea-Maraike Sambale & Leonie Witka, from emotional AI to digital intimacy and algorithmic relationships, this panel explores the blurry, beautiful, slightly unsettling space where humans and machines start emotionally connecting.

🎪 Burning Data Man: CPDP Day 2
From generative AI in education and cybersecurity to digital sovereignty, online manipulation, emotional chatbots, and the legendary CPDP afterparty — we recap the policy-palooza chaos, festival energy, and digital drama shaping Day Two✨

Whether you’re a privacy enthusiast, policymaker, artist, academic, or simply trying to survive the algorithmic age with your humanity and tote bag collection intact… this episode is for you.

🧩 And if you’re surviving CPDP on sparkling water, adrenaline, and approximately twelve overlapping thoughts about AI governance — don’t forget to grab your copy of Puzzling Privacy 3: the ultimate conference companion for solving puzzles while pretending you’re definitely processing panel notes and not just avoiding LinkedIn notifications. Global: https://lnkd.in/eDdSafzN
UK: https://lnkd.in/en2ssvZm
DE: https://lnkd.in/eMNxnsqY
FR: https://lnkd.in/egyCFYFh
ES: https://lnkd.in/eJw78e_P
IT: https://lnkd.in/eB8nySNg
NL: https://lnkd.in/eWxDeKBM
PL: https://lnkd.in/eUghwZER
SE: https://lnkd.in/eKpN8R8w
BE: https://lnkd.in/eS4X-cnk
IE: https://lnkd.in/et5VZ_my
JP: https://lnkd.in/e9qF2B27
CA: https://lnkd.in/e5QQAyPg
AU: https://lnkd.in/eZv4QjtA

If you are interested in the art from the artists featured in this episode:
Joel Baumann: https://www.joelbaumann.com/
Laura Därr: http://lauradaerr.com/vita/
Lea-Maraike Sambale: https://leamaraikesambale.com/
Leonie Witka: https://www.instagram.com/herr_lorni/  

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🚨 NEW EPISODE DROP: Privacy-Chella: Day One at CPDP 🚨

And data darling… Brussels officially entered its festival era. ✨🎪 There I was, stepping into CPDP with a conference badge swinging around my neck like VIP festival access, a tote bag large enough to qualify as emotional support luggage, and the growing realization that privacy professionals might actually have better festival fits than Coachella influencers. Everywhere I looked: AI governance before breakfast, digital sovereignty debates by lunch, tote bags multiplying at dangerous speed, and panels serving more drama than a festival headline act delayed by rain.

And I couldn’t help but wonder… when did data protection become the hottest ticket of festival season? In this extra long episode of Data & The City, we head backstage at CPDP — the ultimate privacy festival where regulators, academics, activists, and tech insiders gather beneath the Brussels skyline for three days of policy glamour, AI anxieties, digital rights debates, and intellectually overstimulating main-stage energy.

This episode’s chapters: 
🎓 The Algorithm Took My Homework
Sjoera Nas joins us to unpack generative AI in education, ethical AI, public values, and whether schools can embrace AI without letting Big Tech become the permanent festival headliner.
📸 The Festival of Oversharing
Sunghyun Lee takes us into the world of children’s digital self-determination, “sharenting,” AI profiling, and Korea’s bold “Delete the Children” initiative. ⚖️ The Freedom of Expression Afterparty
Dr. Saskia Ostendorff and Friederike Vanon Frauqué step onto the legal main stage to unpack free speech, GDPR tensions, SLAPP lawsuits, and why digital rights are increasingly fighting for the spotlight.
🎪 Privacy-Chella – Day 1 at CPDP
From AI investigations and platform governance to digital labour, policy drama, festival networking, and regulatory chic — we recap the biggest conversations shaping Day One at Europe’s most fashionable privacy festival. ✨ Whether you’re a privacy enthusiast, policymaker, academic, or just someone who enjoys watching Europe try to regulate the future while serving impeccable conference fashion… this episode is for you.

🧩 And if you’re surviving CPDP with tired feet, an overstimulated brain, and approximately sixteen unfinished conversations about AI regulation — don’t forget to grab your copy of Puzzling Privacy 3: the ultimate conference companion for solving puzzles while pretending you’re definitely processing panel notes and not just avoiding LinkedIn notifications.
Global: https://lnkd.in/eDdSafzN
UK: https://lnkd.in/en2ssvZm
DE: https://lnkd.in/eMNxnsqY
FR: https://lnkd.in/egyCFYFh
ES: https://lnkd.in/eJw78e_P
IT: https://lnkd.in/eB8nySNg
NL: https://lnkd.in/eWxDeKBM
PL: https://lnkd.in/eUghwZER
SE: https://lnkd.in/eKpN8R8w
BE: https://lnkd.in/eS4X-cnk
IE: https://lnkd.in/et5VZ_my
JP: https://lnkd.in/e9qF2B27
CA: https://lnkd.in/e5QQAyPg
AU: https://lnkd.in/eZv4QjtA

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🚨 New Episode Drop! 🚨

Our CPDP special has officially begun, data darlings...and this one is serving festival glamour, policy plot twists, digital drama, and enough AI existentialism to require a second tote bag.There I was, stepping into Brussels with a perfectly planned outfit, a fully charged phone, and absolutely no emotional preparation for how quickly CPDP would turn into the Coachella of privacy conferences. Everywhere I looked, regulators, academics, activists, and founders were floating between panels like festivalgoers chasing headline acts — only instead of music, everyone was debating AI sovereignty, digital rights, surveillance, and the future of humanity over sparkling water and networking snacks.

And I couldn’t help but wonder… when did data protection become the hottest festival ticket in Europe?In this special CPDP Opening Night episode of Data & The City, we head backstage into Europe’s biggest festival of ideas — from political debates on innovation and regulation to startup culture, digital sovereignty, AI anxieties, and the strange beauty of people passionately arguing about GDPR in fabulous coats.

In this episode:
✨ Pre-Drinks & Privacy Notices — Welcome to the policy-palooza that is CPDP 2026.
🎤 The Data Darling Kick-Off — AI, innovation, regulation, and Europe’s digital identity crisis take the main stage.

And of course, don’t forget to pack your ultimate conference companion: Puzzling Privacy 3 — perfect for surviving panel overload, networking fatigue, and post-keynote existentialism with style. You can find it here:
Global: https://lnkd.in/eDdSafzN
UK: https://lnkd.in/en2ssvZm
DE: https://lnkd.in/eMNxnsqY
FR: https://lnkd.in/egyCFYFh
ES: https://lnkd.in/eJw78e_P
IT: https://lnkd.in/eB8nySNg
NL: https://lnkd.in/eWxDeKBM
PL: https://lnkd.in/eUghwZER
SE: https://lnkd.in/eKpN8R8w
BE: https://lnkd.in/eS4X-cnk
IE: https://lnkd.in/et5VZ_my
JP: https://lnkd.in/e9qF2B27
CA: https://lnkd.in/e5QQAyPg
AU: https://lnkd.in/eZv4QjtA


✨So grab your favourite festival drink, charge your phone, and put on your best conference couture…Because at CPDP, the future of privacy doesn’t just get discussed — it headlines. ✨

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Our latest episode The Algorithm Wears Prada has officially landed — and data darling, it’s serving deception, design, and digital drama in the most impeccably tailored way.

There I was, about to close a website — decision made, exit planned — when suddenly the “leave” button felt harder to find than last season’s it-bag. The “accept all”? Front row, spotlight, impossible to miss. And I couldn’t help but wonder… when did our choices stop being ours, and start being styled for us?

In this episode of Data & The City, we slip into the perfectly cut world of dark patterns — where design doesn’t just guide, it nudges, frames, and sometimes quietly decides. From shopping carts that fill themselves to subscriptions that cling like a bad ex, to interfaces that feel effortless but are anything but… this is your chic survival guide to spotting the seams behind the screen.

This episode’s chapters:
🧵 Dark Patterns Unstitched — From roach motels to confirmshaming and basket sneaking, we unravel the subtle design tricks shaping your choices every day.
🎙️ Behind the Seams with Dr. Mark Leiser — We sit down with a leading expert on deceptive design to explore how dark patterns go deeper than the interface — and what that means for your autonomy online.
👠 The Algorithm Wears Prada — From streaks to shopping and everything in between, we explore how design, psychology, and business models come together to keep you clicking — and what you can do to take back control.

✨ Whether you’re a privacy enthusiast, policymaker, or just someone who’s ever wondered why “decline” feels so hard to find… this episode is for you.

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🚨 New Episode Drop! 🚨

Our latest episode Doomscroll Patrol has officially landed — and data darling, it’s serving addictive design, legal couture, and a reality check we didn’t know we needed.

There I was, settling in for a quiet night — one screen, one story, one intention — when suddenly I was three scrolls deep, five apps in, and completely detached from where I started. And I couldn’t help but wonder… when did our attention become something we try on… only to realise it was never really ours?

In this episode of Data & The City, we step onto the digital runway of addictive design — where infinite scrolls feel like seamless silhouettes, notifications act like statement accessories, and algorithms dress our feeds better than we dress ourselves. From the rules trying to reshape the system to the psychology keeping us hooked, this episode is your chic survival guide to reclaiming your attention — with style.

This episode’s chapters:
🧵 Doomscroll Patrol — From infinite scroll to autoplay, we break down the design features that keep you hooked — and how the Digital Services Act and Digital Fairness Act are trying to tailor them back into shape.
🎙️ Behind the Seams with Gianclaudio Malgieri — We step into Leiden for a conversation on digital vulnerability, addictive design, and what happens when platforms start shaping not just our data… but our decisions.
📉 The Ultimate Power Move — From courtrooms to coping mechanisms, we explore the real-world consequences of addictive design — and how to take back control of your digital wardrobe.

We’re also gearing up for Spin for Life — participating in a 3-hour spinning marathon to raise awareness and funds for groundbreaking cancer research 💖 If you’d like to support, you can donate via this link: https://www.fightcancer.nl/fundraisers/jennifercrama until 16/04/2026.  

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