More and more public decisions are made by digital systems. We help public bodies keep control of those systems and stay accountable for them.
Established by decision of the EPLO Executive Committee, 20 August 2026.
Digital-transformation ministries, data-protection and AI regulators, courts and tribunals, EPLO member-state institutions, and Council of Europe, OECD and EU programme bodies.
Benefit eligibility, border and asylum control, law enforcement, justice and elections all fall under Annex III. Obligations apply from 2 December 2027, and existing public-authority systems must comply by 2 August 2030. Assessment, redesign and staff training each take time, so the work is easier to start well before those dates.
Cloud and AI providers, system integrators delivering public functions under contract, and professional-services firms advising public-sector clients.
A public authority cannot outsource its accountability along with its technology. Suppliers whose arrangements let the authority keep the ten retained capabilities (to understand, direct, document, audit, explain, correct, intervene, preserve evidence, continue and exit) answer that question before it is asked.
Individual practitioners building competence in AI governance and Digital Public Law, and postgraduate or doctoral students.
Short courses lead to a certificate of completion. Study programmes approved by the Scientific Council lead to a title of studies issued in the name of EPLO, with ECTS credits and a Diploma Supplement. Master's and doctoral degrees run through ELGU. Scholarships and fee waivers may be available from project funds.
People who scrutinise how public bodies use digital systems, and who need a clear, shared way to ask whether those bodies are still in control.
Public bodies, suppliers and watchdogs are more likely to agree on what went wrong when they apply the same tests. The Institute is open about its methods so that anyone can use them.
Some clients need only a diagnosis. Others want help with what follows. The three stages can be commissioned separately or together, and your institution takes and owns every decision.
We start from how your function runs today, where delay or error shows up, and what it costs. Then we scope it, map who and what it depends on, and test it against the Six Gates.
For each finding we propose a remedy: contract clauses, procedural changes, amendments to regulations or internal rules. These are advisory, and you decide what to adopt.
We draft the texts the remedy needs, train the staff who will operate the corrected arrangement, and provide technical expertise until it runs smoothly.
Training, assessment and drafting can be commissioned separately or together.
Two tiers. Tier 1 is a portfolio of short academic and CPD courses built on a one-week Foundations course. Tier 2 is the assessed DPLIA for AI Systems Practitioner Course.
Independent assessments and audits of specific public functions, systems and management systems.
Drafting support grounded in the team's record: terms of reference for Ukraine's Ministry of Digital Transformation and legislative work for the Verkhovna Rada.
Tier 1 courses are drawn from the Power over Code Teaching Textbook and start with the Foundations course. Tier 2 is the assessed practitioner programme.
| Course | Duration | For |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 · Short courses | ||
| Foundations of Digital Public Law | 1 week / 35 h | Anyone entering the field; the gateway to every other Tier 1 course |
| Digital Administration & Justice Practice | 2 days / 14 h | Administrators, court and tribunal staff, regulators; tailored for judges and civil servants |
| Digital Identity & Public Infrastructure | 3 days / 21 h | Identity, procurement and infrastructure specialists |
| Comparative Digital Governance Clinic | 3 days / 21 h | Comparative policy researchers, multilateral and civil-society staff |
| Digital Democracy & Platform Governance | 2 days / 14 h | Electoral bodies, platform regulators, civil-society participants |
| Frontier Technologies in Digital Public Law | 3 days / 21 h | Technologists and IT/security officials |
| Tier 2 · Assessed practitioner programme | ||
| DPLIA for AI Systems: Practitioner Course | 5 days / 35 h | Lawyers, judges, regulators, procurement officers, DPOs, auditors and AI-governance staff who will run assessments |
| DPLIA for AI Systems: Three-Day Intensive | 3 days / 21 h | Institutions needing a shorter applied introduction; not equivalent to the five-day course |
An analytical, soft-law framework that combines the Power over Code standard and the Digital Public Law Impact Assessment (DPLIA).
Non-delegable public responsibility, made testable: capabilities the responsible institution must actually hold, not merely assert.
The Council of Europe's HUDERIA assesses impacts on human rights, democracy and the rule of law. DPLIA adds the constitutional-legality and institutional-control layer and is designed to be used with it.
A management-system audit asks whether an organisation governs its AI well. DPLIA asks whether a public institution keeps lawful control of a specific function. The two answer different questions.
An Art. 27 fundamental rights impact assessment is a deployer's own document. DPLIA can sharpen its scope, affected-persons and oversight sections without replacing it.
Volume II of Digital Public Law and Governance applies the Framework's gates to real public digital systems: welfare and benefit algorithms, digital identity and registries, health-data platforms, contact tracing, content blocking, digital money and outsourced state powers. It keeps two tiers apart: a core set verified against judicial findings, parliamentary inquiries or audits, and a supplementary set checked at a lighter tier. This is comparative evidence, not a claim that the method has been validated.
The EPLO Office in Ukraine in Kyiv coordinates the Institute's projects and activities in Ukraine.
EPLO Director Professor Spyridon Flogaitis publicly greeted the Director's appointment, and DPLIA was presented at the ReUnion Workshop.
The Office was established under an intergovernmental agreement between the Government of Ukraine and EPLO. It supports legal and public-administration reform: legal education, international projects in public administration, democratic institutions, and the adaptation of national legislation to European standards, as part of Ukraine's recovery.
For the Institute, the Office supports and coordinates the operational side of its work, including activities relating to Ukraine and international projects. It provides administrative and logistical support, and its Head co-chairs the Scientific Council.
The Institute is one of EPLO's institutes and works with ELGU, the university founded and operated by EPLO, for degree-level study.
The Project Office runs the Institute's research, programmes and engagements under the Director: it monitors legal and policy developments, prepares publications and training materials, and builds projects and partnerships.
Scientific quality and academic standards are overseen by the Scientific Council.
Europe Athens · Kyiv · AberdeenAsia Phuket · SingaporeOceania Canberra
Professor, Dr Jur. Habil. Director of the Institute for Digital Society & Future Public Law. Author of the foundations of Digital Public Law: the Power over Code standard and the DPLIA methodology. ISO/IEC 42001 and 27001 Lead Auditor.
Kyiv · Phuket · Athens
PhD, Public Administration. Legislative consultant to the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Digital Transformation since 2018. Over 20 years in trust services and cybersecurity.
Kyiv
Privacy Counsel (Children's Privacy and Online Safety), Wargaming, since 2022. FIP, CIPP/E, CIPM. Nine years as Senior Associate, IP/TMT/Privacy, Arzinger.
Singapore
Chief Product and Technology Officer, eyos; founder of littledot (on-device AI). Visiting Professor, National University "Kyiv Aviation Institute", teaching a postgraduate LLM and agentic-systems course. Former security consultant, Deloitte.
Singapore
Research, Policy and Partnerships Administration Officer, Australian Pharmacy Council. Cyber Security Research Assistant, RMIT University. ISO/IEC 42001 and 27001 Lead Auditor.
Canberra
PhD Candidate, AI and Cyber Futures Centre, Charles Sturt University. Co-author, "Blockchain-Based Governance for Autonomous Weapon Systems" (IEEE Access, 2025).
Canberra
Lead Auditor for ISO 9001:2015 (quality), ISO 14001:2015 (environment) and ISO 45001:2018 (occupational health and safety).
Kyiv
Studying International Relations at the University of Aberdeen, with experience in research, international projects, entrepreneurship and digital business development.
Aberdeen
The Institute's emblem draws on the visual language of the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture, one of the major prehistoric cultures of southeastern Europe. Its spirals and interconnected geometric forms are the starting point for a contemporary symbol of continuity, transformation and human agency.
The spiral at the centre stands for the continuing evolution of society and its institutions. The forms around it evoke the interconnected environment in which public authority now operates: law, institutions, data, digital infrastructure and technological systems. The enclosing circle is the constitutional order within which these changes must remain governed.
The emblem also carries the principle of the Institute's Power over Code standard: technology may change the instruments through which public authority is exercised, but public institutions remain responsible for keeping it lawful, accountable, reviewable and under human and constitutional control. The future of public law is a continuation of its foundations, not a break with them.
Under its Regulation, the Institute uses the abbreviated name DSF in all languages, and its emblem and seal carry a reference to EPLO.
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Courses and events run in English, French, Greek or Ukrainian. Tell us if you need any adjustment to take part.
