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About
Damian Clifford is an Assistant Professor researching and teaching in data protection and privacy and the regulation of technology. Prior to joining the LSE in September 2025, Damian was a senior lecturer (2021-2025) and postdoctoral research fellow (2020) at the Australian National University. He has published three books: Data and Private Law (edited with Jeannie Marie Paterson and Kwan Ho Lau and published by Hart in 2023), Data Protection Law and Emotion (published by Oxford University Press in 2024), and Data Rights in Transition (co-authored with Rachelle Bosua, Jing Qian and Megan Richardson and published by Cambridge University Press in 2025). Damian is also one of the core editors of the Cambridge University Press Elements series, Data Rights and Wrongs. He completed his PhD at the KU Leuven Faculty of Law (Belgium) where he was a FWO Aspirant Fellow funded by Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek–Vlaanderen (FWO) from October 2015 to October 2019.
Research
Research Interests
Damian’s research interests are broadly in the areas of data protection and privacy. His work to date has examined the notions of fairness and control in data protection law and has also explored the intersections between data protection, consumer and contract law.
Publications
Rachelle Bosua, Damian Clifford, Jing Qian and Megan Richardson, Data Rights in Transition (Cambridge University Press, 2025)
Data Rights in Transition maps the development of data rights that formed and reformed in response to the socio-technical transformations of the postwar twentieth century. The authors situate these rights, with their early pragmatic emphasis on fair information processing, as different from and less symbolically powerful than utopian human rights of older centuries. They argue that, if an essential role of human rights is 'to capture the world's imagination', the next generation of data rights needs to come closer to realising that vision – even while maintaining their pragmatic focus on effectiveness. After a brief introduction, the sections that follow focus on socio-technical transformations, emergence of the right to data protection, and new and emerging rights such as the right to be forgotten and the right not to be subject to automated decision-making, along with new mechanisms of governance and enforcement.
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Damian Clifford, Data Protection Law and Emotion (Oxford University Press, 2024)
Data protection law is often positioned as a regulatory solution to the risks posed by computational systems. Despite the widespread adoption of data protection laws, however, there are those who remain sceptical as to their capacity to engender change. Much of this criticism focuses on our role as 'data subjects'. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that we lack the capacity to act in our own best interests and, what is more, that our decisions have negative impacts on others. Our decision-making limitations seem to be the inevitable by-product of the technological, social, and economic reality. Data protection law bakes in these limitations by providing frameworks for notions such as consent and subjective control rights and by relying on those who process our data to do so fairly.
Despite these valid concerns, Data Protection Law and Emotion argues that the (in)effectiveness of these laws are often more difficult to discern than the critical literature would suggest, while also emphasizing the importance of the conceptual value of subjective control. These points are explored (and indeed, exposed) by investigating data protection law through the lens of the insights provided by law and emotion scholarship and demonstrating the role emotions play in our decision-making. The book uses the development of Emotional Artificial Intelligence, a particularly controversial technology, as a case study to analyse these issues.
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Damian Clifford, Kwan Ho Lau and Jeannie Paterson (eds), Data and Private Law (Hart Publishing, 2023)
This collection examines one of the fastest growing fields of regulation: data rights. The book moves debates about data beyond data and privacy protecting statutes. In doing so, it asks what private law may have to say about these issues and explores how private law may influence the interpretation and the form of legislation dealing with data. Over five parts it: sets out an overview of the themes and problems; explores theoretical justifications and challenges in understanding data; considers data through the perspective of cognate private law doctrines; assesses the contribution of private law in understanding individual rights; and finally examines the potential of private law in providing individual remedies for wrongful data use, supplementing the work of regulators.
- Andrew Ray, Heather Roberts and Damian Clifford, ‘Constitutional Challenges in Combatting Disinformation and the Five Eyes Alliance’ in Melissa-Ellen Dowling and Jennifer Hunt (eds), Digital (Dis)Information Operations: Fooling the Five Eyes (Routledge, 2025)
- Damian Clifford, Jake Goldenfein, Aitor Jimenez and Megan Richardson, ‘A Right of Social Dialogue on Automated Decision-Making: From Workers’ Right to Autonomous Right’, Technology and Regulation, (2023), 1-9.
- Megan Richardson, Damian Clifford and Rachelle Bosua, ‘Contact- Tracing Technologies and the Problem of Trust—Framing a Right of Social Dialogue for an Impact Assessment Process in Pandemic Times’, Law, Technology and Humans (Advance online publication, 2023)
- Andrew Ray, Damian Clifford and Heather Roberts, ‘Digital Assets as Property and the Challenges of Forced Judicial Activism’, Modern Studies in Property Law, (2023) 12, 11-33.
- Damian Clifford, Kwan Ho Lau and Jeannie Paterson, ‘Introduction to Data and Private Law’, in Data and private law, Damian Clifford, Kwan Ho Lau and Jeannie Paterson (eds.) (Hart Publishing, 2023).
- Damian Clifford and Jeannie Paterson, ‘Data Rights and Contract Law: Formation, Incorporation and Vitiating Factors’, in Data and private law, Damian Clifford, Kwan Ho Lau and Jeannie Paterson (eds.) (Hart Publishing, 2023).
- Rachelle Bosua, Marc Cheong, Karin Clark, Damian Clifford, Simon Coghlan, Chris Culnane, Kobi Leins and Megan Richards. 'Using public data to measure diversity in computer science research communities: A critical data governance perspective,' Computer Law & Security Review, (2022) 44, 1-10.
- Damian Clifford, Megan Richardson and Normann Witzleb, ‘Artificial Intelligence and Sensitive Inferences: Protecting Sensitive Personal Data in the Age of Anxiety’, in Regulatory Insights on Artificial Intelligence: Research for Policy, Findlay, Ford, Seoh and Thampapillai (eds.) (Edward Elgar, 2022).
- Damian Clifford, ‘Data Protection and Consumer Protection – The Empowerment of the Citizen-Consumer’, in Research Handbook on Privacy and Data Protection Law: Values, Norms and Global Politics, G.G. Fuster, R. van Brakel and P. De Hert (eds.) (Edward Elgar, 2022).
- Damian Clifford, ‘The Data Protection Fairness Principle and the GDPR’ in Sacha Garben and Laurence Gormley (eds), Oxford Encyclopaedia of EU Law (Oxford University Press 2022).
- Lisa Archbold, Damian Clifford, Moira Paterson, Megan Richardson and Normann Witzleb, ‘Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle!’ – Adtech and Children’s Data Rights’, UNSW Law Review, (2021) 44(3), 857- 877.
- Lisa Archbold, Valerie Verdoodt, Faith Gordon and Damian Clifford, ‘Children’s Privacy in Lockdown: Intersections between Privacy, Participation and Protection Rights in a Pandemic’, Law, Technology and Humans, (2021) 3(1), 18-34.
- Valerie Verdoodt, Robbie Fordyce, Lisa Archbold, Faith Gordon, and Damian Clifford, ‘Esports - child’s play during COVID-19’, International Journal of Children’s Rights, (2021) 29(2), 496-520.
- Peggy Valcke, Damian Clifford and Vilte Steponėnaitė, ‘Constitutional Challenges in the Emotional AI Era’, in Constitutional Challenges in the Algorithmic Society, Hans-W Micklitz et al. (eds) (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
- Damian Clifford and Jeannie Paterson, ‘Consumer Privacy and Consent: Reform in the Light of Contract and Consumer Protection Law’, Australian Law Journal, (2020) 94(10), 741–751.
- Megan Richardson, Damian Clifford, Karin Clarke and Rachelle Bosua, ‘The Internet of Things and The Meaning of “Personal Data”: A Case Study in Regulation for Rights’, Revue européenne de droit de la consommation (2020) 20(3) 503-522.
- Anne-Lise Sibony and Damian Clifford, 'La personnalisation illicite: La perspective du droit européen de la consommation', in Le Big Data et le Droit, Florence G'sell (ed.), (Dalloz 2020).
- Damian Clifford, ‘Citizen-consumers in a personalised Galaxy: Emotion influenced decision-making, a true path to the dark side?’, in Future Law: Emerging Technology, Regulation and Ethics, Lilian Edwards, Edina Harbinja and Burkhard Shaffer (eds.) (Edinburgh Uni Press (2020)).
- Damian Clifford, Inge Graef and Peggy Valcke, ‘Pre-Formulated Declarations of Data Subject Consent – Citizen-Consumer Empowerment and the Alignment of Data, Consumer and Competition Law Protections’, German Law Journal (2019) 20(5), 679-721.
- Peggy Valcke, Inge Graef and Damian Clifford, ‘iFairness – Constructing Fairness in IT (and other areas of) Law Through Intra- and Interdisciplinarity’, Computer Law and Security Review, (2018) 34(4), 707- 714.
- Inge Graef, Damian Clifford and Peggy Valcke, ‘Fairness and Enforcement: Bridging Competition, Data Protection and Consumer Law’, International Data Privacy Law (2018) 8 (3), 200-223.
- Damian Clifford and Jef Ausloos, Data Protection and the Role of Fairness, Yearbook of European Law (2018) 37, 130-187.
- Damian Clifford and Valerie Verdoodt, ‘Integrative advertising: The marketing ‘dark side’ or merely the Emperor’s new clothes?’, European Journal of Law and Technology, (2017) 8(1), 1-43.
- Jessica Schroers and Damian Clifford, ‘Legal Implications of information in sharing’ in Collaborative Cyber Threat Intelligence: Detecting and Responding to Advanced Cyber Attacks at the National Level, Florian Skopik (ed.) October 2017 CRC Press.
- Valerie Verdoodt, Damian Clifford, and Eva Lievens, Toying with children’s emotions, the new game in town? The legality of advergames in the EU. Computer Law and Security Report, (2016) 32, 599–614.
- Damian Clifford and Yung Shin Van Der Sype, Online dispute resolution: Settling data protection disputes in a digital world of customers. Computer Law and Security Report, (2016) 32 (2), 272-285.
- Damian Clifford, The Role of the EU in the Re-use of Member State Public Sector Information—the Commercialisation of Publicly Available Data and the Practical Legal Consequences, Commercial Law Practitioner, (2015) 22(1).
- Damian Clifford, EU Data Protection Law and Targeted Advertising: Consent and the Cookie Monster - Tracking the crumbs of online user behaviour, JIPITEC, (2014) 5(3), 194-212.