Fashion And Tech: Five Examples Of A Trendy Combination

Only a few years ago, combining a luxury fashion brand with artificial intelligence ("AI") systems and blockchain might have appeared audacious. This is no longer the case for most fashion houses and retailers, which are now focusing on innovation and new technologies as key drivers to grow their business.

In this post we will address five examples of "Fashion and tech" legal issues, as also discussed last week at the course in Fashion Law at the University of Milan.

1. Fashionable (smart) accessories

   One of the latest trends for fashion stylists is to design "smart" fashionable accessories, including, for instance, bracelets and watches as special collection items. These smart (IoT) objects are equipped with sensors, which are able to record and transmit a large amount of personal data. This raises a number of concerns from a data protection perspective, especially considering that special categories of personal data (pursuant to Article 9 of Regulation no. EU/679/2016, "GDPR") may be processed, including health and certain lifestyle data. The main concerns range from risks of intrusive profiling, repurpose and secondary uses, quality of users' consent, lack of control over data sharing and potential uncontrolled disclosure of data. This necessitates setting up adequate data governance and, among other things, strict security measures to minimize the risks of unauthorized access and processing of personal data (for more information on smart objects, including the safeguards and security, please also refer to this post).

2. AI marketing, from CRM to virtual assistants and influencers

   AI systems are now used also to "manage" the customer base, from advanced CRM systems, which allow more efficient marketing campaigns, agile made-to-order production and inventory management, to virtual assistants, including virtual tailors, shopping assistants and influencers (if you want to read more about virtual influencers see our post here).

   As for CRMs, legal issues are not limited to the "usual" GDPR regulations that need to be taken into account. When CRMs are fed through AI-powered databases, other matters will have to be considered, including antitrust, insider law, product safety, dual use, insurance law, etc. For more information you can read our posts on Artificial Intelligence vs Data Protection: which safeguards? and AI Data Lakes: top five issues to consider.

   Furthermore, there may be questions over who is actually liable for actions carried out...