© Unsplash/Aaron Burden

In the TRUSTS project, legal and ethical issues arise from the research and innovation activities. Therefore, we analyzed the research ethics principles to address these subjects and introduce the ethical landscape applicable for TRUSTS.

The development, testing and validation must comply with ethical principles to respect the individuals involved and to prevent harm. TRUSTS adheres to the ethics adopted throughout the European Union and embeds it in the planning, development, testing and implementation of its socio-technical solution.

Ethics is a primary concern for researchers. Ethics underlie European law and provide guidance when navigating the ambiguities of legal norms. Ethical standards provide guidelines and should be respected when evaluating and developing new solutions, which may fall in a yet unregulated area, such as AI. Ethics plays an important role when considering the appropriate course of action in conditions of uncertainty.

In Deliverable 6.1 we analyzed relevant sources of ethics obligations such as the H2020 ethics code of conduct and highlighted the areas of concern within the project such as the use of AI systems.

Read Deliverable 6.1 „Research Ethics“

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In line with the European Data Strategy and the concept of common European data spaces, TRUSTS seeks to establish a data platform for secure, trustworthy and GDPR-compliant data exchange. In doing so, it strives for business sustainability to become a viable business partner in the data ecosystem. To set itself apart from other data market infrastructures, TRUSTS focuses on data sovereignty, federation, and interoperability. However, does this suffice for business sustainability? It is definitely not an easy undertaking and requires dedicated exploration as part of the project.

Generally speaking, there are 3 distinct roles to be filled by the emerging TRUSTS platform:

• Data Market
• Data Market Federator (meta-market)
• Ecosystem Facilitator

In its first role as a data market, TRUSTS concentrates on data sovereignty, privacy and security and is planning to set up a data market for both, B2C and B2B. For this purpose, the 3 use cases are being explored in the financial and telecommunication sector, deploying state-of-the-art methods such as federated learning, transfer learning, multiparty computation and homomorphic encryption.

Yet, to achieve sustainability, data markets and platforms strive for richer pools of data assets, that is problem-solution specific data sets and pertinent algorithms and functionalities. A pathway to achieving this is to bring together a multitude of open data cloud systems and large data vendors in common data spaces and an overarching data market to overcome the problem of fragmentation. A data-driven ecosystem is then formed through the inclusion of further stakeholders and innovative data-driven services.

In its second role as a data market federator or meta-data market, TRUSTS brings together several data markets and leverages the experience of the data market projects IDS and DMA. TRUSTS will become

“a platform that fosters value transfer and resource sharing among and across other (same- or cross-domain) individual platforms based on the concept of federation through openness and interoperability endeavours, thus enabling quicker and greater network effects”, Andreas emphasised.

As an ecosystem facilitator, TRUSTS aspires to have a sustainable impact on the EU data economy, while concentrating on interoperability and acting as building block for enacting the European Data Strategy. The consortium partner IDSA already provides a deployed standard (IDS framework) for interoperability, which focuses on a decentralised data infrastructure. This framework of open standards and interoperability can enable TRUSTS to contribute to breaking up legacy- or technology vendor-induced silos by forming the interconnected infrastructure for secure exchange and deployment of data assets.

The data ecosystem does not only include data sellers and buyers. Very much like in a layered model, at the core, there is the transactional data exchange value chain including direct data suppliers, data value distribution channels, and data users. Stakeholders are added in the outer layers. These include among others technology and services providers, research and academia, government institutions or standardisation bodies. “On balance, data providers and data users require enabling players”, Andreas explains.

Taxonomy and business modelling for TRUSTS

After a first wave of mostly failed data markets over the last decade, today, there is a wide range of data marketplaces with very diverse origins, differentiated approaches and value propositions. Each of them has chosen specific pathways to sustainability. TRUSTS does not focus on researching once more those proven business models encompassing proprietary data enrichment and trading, but puts a focus on data markets which predominantly act as intermediaries, facilitators, and brokers to enable decentralised data exchange, while adding rich data processing and transformation functionalities. The required approach of interoperability and decentralisation is fully reflecting the European Data Strategy – “the value of diversity brought together”, Bert adds.

As input to the project, TRUSTS’ consortium partner Delft University of Technology conducted research in data market taxonomies, focusing on business model attributes. The resulting comprehensive framework will be applied in TRUSTS to test and refine business models. “It is like a pre-configured morphologic box for data markets, corresponding to the commonly known business modelling canvas”, explains Bert.

For the webinar, a simplified depiction of standard Business Model Architecture was used to elaborate on the observations current state of business modelling within TRUSTS. It comprises a [1] value creation model (product squared with value discipline, customers and channels), [2] profit model (unit economics based on revenue model and cost structure) and the amalgamating [3] business logic defining sustainability and growth through virtuous cycles.

When exploring these three domains of the business architecture for a basic data market with transaction-based pricing during the Data Market Austria project (2016-2019), it became apparent that this hardly will form a sustainable business model. Next to more refined customer segmentation, e.g. with increased business domain specificity, this takes modular bundling and interoperability of algorithms and components, and not least the complementing components and applications, necessary computing infrastructure and auxiliary services. Building a business model thereby becomes a multidimensional challenge within overlapping competitive environments.

Differentiators and potential USPs

Data is a unique economic good and rarely acts like a commodity in fully transparent markets. The problem of data pricing remains unsolved. Thus, the value of data is highly contextual and usage dependent. Research of German consortium partner Fraunhofer Gesellschaft indicates higher profitability of business models pertaining to data space operations and provision of trusted data services.

To differentiate itself, TRUSTS explores a set of promising differentiating factors – sovereignty and security, federation, and interoperability – corresponding to the three mandated roles of the platform.

In the context of the European Data Strategy, the federation concept for data markets is unique, not only making accessible a profusion of data assets but lifting the interoperability to the next level. The vision of TRUSTS is to become a central venue for data exchange and a new federated data ecosystem allowing the integration and adoption of future platforms, and getting part and parcel of everyday business processes of companies and across industrial value chains.

Originally, data markets focused on the facilitation of data assets trading and could only survive as highly specialised, domain specific niche markets. Simply scaling up data supply and growing into data super-markets catering for all needs was a deadlock.

Bert says: “Over the last five years, the data market landscape has evolved dramatically and became more sophisticated. And there are clear synergies between nimble specialised pools of data assets. The TRUSTS platform could become the equivalent of a data asset mall operator, providing the infrastructure for collaborative data spaces linked to all sorts of specialised providers of data sets and services.”

Bert summarises: “When exploring business model options, we need to move away from an understanding of data-as-a-product, pushed for sales, and rather focus on applied data-as-solution to business problems in coopetitive settings. For this, we need to bring interoperable infrastructure and services into the mix. Only if we take all this together, within an open, well-governed framework, will we make a meaningful contribution to and have an impact on the European data economy.”

How to get involved

To create a sustainable business model of the TRUSTS platform and cater for the requirements of the European data economy, the TRUSTS consortium is inviting interested stakeholders to participate. If you or your organisation want to get involved, support or collaborate with our project, please get in touch. The possibilities are manyfold, ranging from participation in our webinars and podcasts, contributions to our Advisory Board, focus groups and workshops or the exploration of options for using the emerging platform for pilot projects.

We are looking forward to hearing from you: info@trusts-data.eu

If you have missed the webinar, you can find the link on our YouTube channel.

Here you can also find the PPT slides.

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The domains where IDS can be applied to are multiple, going from manufacturing and mobility, to healthcare and agriculture. No limit to the potential of IDS! You can shape your own ecosystem, be it on a corporate level or a multi-corporate level.

• Are you interested in the benefits that IDS can bring to you?
• Are you eager to exploit the IDS technology or do you want to know how you can offer your data services in the IDS-ecosystem?
• Are you just curious about IDS and would you like to find out more about it?

Then join our Consultation Hour! We will tell you more about our association, the value of the IDS initiative and how you can contribute.

Main purpose of the session is to discuss the Data Spaces enabled by IDS and to answer your questions, so do not hesitate to share your thoughts! We are looking forward to it.

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G1 and TU Delft conducted a workshop within the internal consortium on 22 October 2020 to discuss the positioning of the TRUSTS-project in the European data economy. The objective of the workshop was twofold:

1. Solicited perspectives and inputs from TRUSTS consortium partners to position the TRUSTS project in the European data economy
2. Initiated business modeling for trusted secure data sharing spaces

Participants discussed three possible choices of TRUSTS positioning in the European data economy. These are 1) TRUSTS as a data market, 2) TRUSTS as a federator of data markets, and 3) TRUSTS as a data ecosystem facilitator.

First, as a data market, TRUSTS can be viewed as a platform to facilitate data trading (i.e. data exchange and financial transaction) between data providers and data buyers. It will provide fundamental functionalities such as onboarding mechanisms, dataset discoveries, trading arrangements, etc. To date, TU Delft has developed two business model taxonomies to position TRUSTS as a data market (see Bergman, 2020; van de Ven, 2020). The studies have identified value-adding services to attract both data providers and buyers, namely:

1. cleaning data to ensure data quality
2. analysing data to create aggregated datasets
3. offering personal assistance in data sale and acquisition

© mark-fletcher-brown on Pixabay

Second, TRUSTS can also be viewed as a federator of data markets, going beyond the development  of “yet another data market platform.” As a potential federator, TRUSTS will be interoperating with existing data markets (IDS, DMA) and future data markets. TRUSTS will potentially create value by forwarding and connecting data market traffics, gradually  harmonising technology stack through coordination and common standards, and providing non-differentiating capabilities (e.g. billing) as shared-services. One interesting topic raised by a participant was the conceptual form of the federation.

“Which conceptual model will we employ? The federation based on a hierarchal meta-platform or Peer to Peer (P2P) network of data markets?”

The participants discussed that a hierarchical meta-platform would be a starting point for the federation of data markets. Insights from such a meta-platform as well as insights from interoperable industrial data clouds may lead to the emergence of P2P federations of data markets in the more distant future.

Finally, as a data ecosystem facilitator, TRUSTS will be potentially served by taking on one or multiple roles as

• a champion among data markets and propagating federatedness
• an industry association of European data markets by driving standards and shaping policies,
• an innovation hub, providing experimental environment(s) and brokerage of associated services

In general, the workshop participants were aware of these three positionings and had the same perspective that TRUSTS should fulfill the project mandate (i.e. enable interoperability with other data markets). Other interesting topics that need to be further discussed include the identification of TRUSTS’ value proposition, the primary obstacles to the adoption of federation by data markets, the operating company of TRUSTS, etc.

The next step is to develop webinar content based on these workshop results. We will also refine the workshop materials and re-run the refined workshop with participants outside the TRUSTS consortium.

Reference

BERGMAN, R. 2020. A Business Model Taxonomy for Data Marketplaces. Master of Science, Delft University of Technology.

VAN DE VEN, M. R. 2020. Creating a Taxonomy of Business Models for Data Marketplaces. Master of Science, Delft University of Technology.

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Interviewer: Nina Popanton, Data Intelligence Offensive (DIO)

• How will data markets shape the European industry?
• What are the business perspectives of the TRUSTS project?
• What are the benefits and risks?

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December 7, 2020 – Leuven/Vienna. Privacy and data protection supporting the compliance of data sharing with EU rules is a new challenge for our society. A specific legal framework that protects relevant data from unauthorised use but also does not put European businesses at a disadvantage in global competition, is urgently needed. That is what TRUSTS is working on. In the project’s deliverable 6.2. (Legal and Ethical Requirements) the issue of controllership of personal data, the ensuing allocation of data protection responsibilities and the legal basis for processing personal data are determined. It informs about the main concepts of the ePrivacy legal frameworks and their relation with GDPR and provides further conceptual legal information on privacy-preserving techniques that might be relevant for TRUSTS partners, stakeholders as well as the European data community.

The legal patchwork for data transactions

“Industry players are increasingly considering data as a commodity to be traded in their own rights. This is particularly seen in data markets. In addition, there is a growing interest of policy makers in data markets and the exchange of data across industries. Still, the legal framework does not sufficiently address data rights in this respect towards commodification of data,” states Lidia Dutkiewicz, researcher at the Centre for IT & IP Law, KU Leuven.

The legal frameworks have increased over time with various rationales. In contrast, the question of whether and how data could be turned into a tradeable asset is  rather new. Even data as a subject matter is a rather new construct in legal thinking. The patchwork of legal frameworks applying to data (transactions) might make it more difficult to trade data because of uncertainty that it brings about and because of the context-specific nature of legal analysis. This being said, a great array of options can be arranged by transacting parties by means of a contract. “However, a major issue lies in the fear of data providers to lose control over their data upon sharing them. Given the absence of clear rights on data, we will further investigate whether data sovereignty can be a solution without hindering core legal principles,” adds Charlotte Ducuing, researcher at the Centre for IT & IP Law, KU Leuven.

© jpornelasadv on Pixabay

Data markets: step by step into a secure and sovereign future of data usage

Charlotte Ducuing, Lidia Dutkiewicz and Yuliya Miadzvetskaya from the Centre for IT & IP Law, KU Leuven (www.kuleuven.be), analysed the European laws and regulations relevant to the TRUSTS platform, defined legal and ethical requirements and identified potential legal and ethical obstacles. The emphasis of this deliverable was put on the most relevant legal and ethical aspects regarding data markets, data sharing, etc. This should enable important pioneering steps to be taken towards a future with sovereign data use. (see full text of deliverable at the end)

On the one hand, there is no ownership right in general on data in the EU member states. Many of the consulted legal scholars also consider that such an ownership right should not be set up due to the specific nature of data. Therefore, data cannot be sold legally like a table or watch. On the other hand, a variety of legal frameworks may apply to data and data transactions, which is subject to context-specific analysis. To provide a little insight: data protection law is applicable when personal data are processed, copyright protection may apply as well as the legal protection of databases. The dataset may be legally protected as trade secret or otherwise be subject to contractual arrangements such as non-disclosure agreements or limitations of (re)use. In addition, sectoral legislation may determine or lead to various types of obligations relating to data directly or indirectly, including an obligation to provide access for third parties to reuse data or alternatively confidentiality or secrecy obligations, etc.

Strong demand for research remains

Yuliya Miadzvetskaya, researcher at the Centre for IT & IP Law, KU Leuven, concludes: “Whether and how the EU should intervene to regulate data sharing from a legal perspective needs to be further analysed. This lies at the core of TRUSTS interdisciplinary research”.

Please find D6.2 in full length at: https://www.trusts-data.eu/deliverables/

Link to CORDIS

Link to APA OTS

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The document draws inspiration from the FAIR data principles that affirm that data should be findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable. As follows from the analysis in deliverable D6.2, the current framework for data sharing is a patchwork of various legislative instruments. The lack of coherence, consistency and certainty hinders data sharing across the EU. With the Data governance act, the Commission now seeks to stimulate data sharing and re-use by strengthening trust in data intermediaries and data exchange mechanisms.

The choice of the legal instrument – regulation – is not accidental since in contrast to directives it does not leave margin of implementation to the member states and thus contributes to a better coordination and homogeneity of EU data policies. Risks of divergent interpretations and implementations across the EU are eliminated or at least minimised.

Four areas for EU intervention are identified:

• mechanisms stimulating the use of public sector data which is not open data
• a certification framework for data intermediaries
• measures facilitating data altruism
• an EU-level structure ensuring the coordination of the horizontal data governance framework

© Gerd Altmann on Pixabay

To bring trust to the functioning of data intermediaries, the certification framework will be put in place on a semi-compulsory basis. The monitoring of the activities of data intermediaries is foreseen by the competent authorities of the Member States upon notification. However, the efficiency of certification as a mechanism to bring trust is questionable. It does not seem that it was a considerable game changer under the GDPR or the EU Cybersecurity Act. It remains to be seen whether it will help to cultivate the culture of trust for data intermediaries or Data Altruism Organisations. The understanding of the concept of trust in this context is particularly relevant for our future work in the TRUSTS project which relies on trust as one of the key elements for stimulating data sharing and re-use.

The draft regulation provides for the creation of a European Data Innovation Board meant to ensure the exchange of information and best practices by Member States’ authorities on data altruism, data intermediaries and the use of public data that cannot be made available as open data.

The proposal also identifies certain technical and legal procedural requirements for making available the categories of data held by public bodies that are not open data.

The draft regulation will go through the ordinary legislative procedure and a number of amendments will be certainly tabled by the European Parliament and the Council.  Regardless of how the final legal act will look, it is obvious that the establishment of common rules and practices in the Member States relating to data governance is only a question of time and negotiations.

Author: Yuliya Miadzvetskaya, KU Leuven

Learn more about the Data Governance Act of the European Commission.

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Sebastian Steinbuß, CTO, IDSA

Interview with Sebastian Steinbuß, CTO at IDSA 

November 27, 2020 – A publication of this interview or contents therein can only be published providing a reference to the TRUSTS project and informing TRUSTS’ communication lead, Nina Popanton.

Dear Mr. Steinbuß, thank you very much for taking your time. Just to give our readers a short introduction: you are the CTO of the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA) and responsible for the organization of the IDSA working groups as well as the technical development of the IDS, which is a data sharing scheme including a reference architecture and a set of agreements to be used for creating and operating virtual data spaces. This makes you an experienced expert with regard to the possibilities of efficient data usage for businesses and all the challenges that come with it – which already leads to my first question:

How can companies realize a secure and efficient data exchange?

Sebastian Steinbuß: For data to be turned into new products or smart services, companies must be able to capture, store, process, evaluate, and publish data efficiently and reasonably, including a link to data from others. What prevents many companies from data sharing is a lack of infrastructures and agreements that ensure data sovereignty for both the data provider and data consumer. IDSA solved this problem: Together with politics, research and industry, IDSA designed a reference architecture for secure data spaces. The participants of such a data space decide how they use their data and with whom they exchange it. The IDS standard defines binding rules for data exchange.

How is IDS connected to TRUSTS?

Sebastian Steinbuß: TRUSTS aims at creating a European Data Market based on sovereign, secure and trustworthy data exchanges. The TRUSTS platform will act independently and as a platform federator, while investigating the legal and ethical aspects that apply on the entire data value chain, from data providers to data consumers. Still, it is no start from scratch since it will be based on the IDS reference architecture.

What makes the IDS reference architecture so valuable for the project?

Sebastian Steinbuß: The IDS Reference Architecture Model is considered the de facto standard for creating and operating data ecosystems. Its approach is to enable interoperability through semantic data descriptions, to create trust between participants through certified security capabilities, and to establish governance rules for data usage and data flows. The IDS ecosystem allows data flows between all kinds of endpoints (e.g. instantiations of the International Data Spaces Connector). Semantic data descriptions provided by data endpoints are published at dedicated Meta-Data-Brokers, allowing potential data consumers to search for and identify data that is relevant (semantics) and applicable (quality) for their particular purpose, and to assess in advance data’s affordability (price) and usability (restrictions and obligations).

What is an ‘IDS Ecosystem’?

Sebastian Steinbuß: Our key word is data sovereignty – the IDS architecture ensures data sovereignty for those who make data available in data ecosystems. This means that data owners always keep control how it is used. They decide who uses their data for how long, for which application, for how many times and according to which terms & conditions. The IDS Connector acts as a secure gateway for IoT and other data sources. Every connector can team up with other connectors to form a peer-to-peer network. As a consequence, data exchange can but does not have to take place via a cloud, in which the data would be stored with a third party provider, but directly between the companies involved. A data value chain consists of multiple peer-to-peer connections and all together sum up to a data-driven business-ecosystem

What makes IDS so special compared to similar technologies? Do any comparable technologies exist?

Sebastian Steinbuß: Participants and core components of IDS-based data ecosystems must provide a high degree of trust and security regarding the integrity, confidentiality and availability of information exchanged in the IDS. Therefore, using certified core components as well as employing certified technical and organisational security measures is mandatory for participating in the IDS. The IDS Certification Scheme defines security levels for components and the requirements to be implemented. IDS is not only a technological standard but also a universal legal framework to create data-driven business ecosystems. Key requirement to make this a reality is to have a set of rules and policies that govern it in a decentralised way. All these rules and policies are collected in the IDS Rule Book. It describes the technical, operational, and legal agreements to enable the IDS ecosystem to be fully working in a real-world scenario. The first edition of the Rule Book will be published this year.

Many thanks for the informative explanations and the illustrations – and especially for taking your time.

[END]

Further inquiries:
Nina Popanton
TRUSTS Communications Lead
Data Intelligence Offensive
+43 664 20 45 965
nina.popanton@dataintelligence.at
www.trusts-data.eu
www.dataintelligence.at

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TRUSTS Trusted Secure Data Sharing Space is a H2020 project, which builds on the experiences and technology of the Data Market Austria (DMA) and International Data Spaces (IDS) data market projects and aims at developing a data sharing platform for secure, trustworthy, and GDPR-compliant data exchange. In doing so, TRUSTS not only acts as data platform provider for data exchange but also as data market federator and data ecosystem facilitator.

The objectives of the project are:

• to create a secure and trustworthy European Data market for personal and industrial use by connecting different user groups and providing generic functionalities for innovative applications and services
• to identify and overcome legal, ethical and technical challenges of cross-border data markets to exploit the full potential of European data economy

Within the project, the current challenges are identified and tested in three use cases in the financial and telecommunications sector to be able to offer a viable, compliant and impactful governance, legal and business model that companies can adopt. TRUSTS will explore and develop its sustainability plan in open discussions with stakeholders from large, small, and medium-sized enterprises as well as with existing non-governmental organisations to adapt to their needs.

A European Strategy for Data

To remain competitive on a global level and guarantee data sovereignty the European Commission has developed a Data Strategy which aims at creating a Digital Single Market (DSM). This requires common European data spaces where high-quality data is used and flows across sectors while respecting European values, fair and clear regulations and implementing rules for access and data governance mechanisms. However, there are still some hindrances such as lack of European data processing and storage solutions, lack of reusable data available and lack of comprehensive data governance approaches and the fragmented single market. Moreover, citizens and businesses are sceptical towards data sharing. Therefore, enablers and common European data spaces are necessary. TRUSTS acts as such an enabler by offering a federated approach where the consortium partners work together and offer federated European solutions for data sharing. Through DMA a technical bridge was built and it is being realised in TRUSTS now. The Data Intelligence Offensive (DIO), for instance, addresses the topic of federation through data circles, in which a federated solution for data sharing is developed.

Study on data markets

A comprehensive overview of the data market environment helps achieve sustainable results for the TRUSTS project. Therefore, IDSA performs a market study in which a common knowledge base is built and insights into current trends in data markets and recommendations for the implementation of TRUSTS are provided. However, there are also some challenges faced during the study related to pricing mechanisms and data valuation, monetisation schemes, control over data, data quality and integrity as well as privacy and security. As a second step, the framework conditions are analysed in more detail – the EU Data Strategy, economical, technological and legal aspects.

Another big question is if there is a competition or coopetition. In this respect, questions like the following are analysed: How is the rivalry among competitors, What is the threat of new entrants? Or How powerful are data buyers?

Creating innovative data ecosystems – from vertical sectors to horizontal exchanges with trust-based technologies

The vision of TRUSTS is to become a focal point of data exchange and a new federated data ecosystem to be implemented in everyday business processes of companies while allowing the integration and adoption of future platforms. In doing so, it will offer a set of unified services with standardised interfaces incl. end-to-end technologies, end-to end services and end-to-end processes that function harmoniously to increase the potential for industrial change. As a consequence, the project enables migration from various silos to a connected economy and a comprehensive, transparent and legitimate data exchange.

However, is this sufficient for business sustainability? To see which data business models will be sustainable the current challenges are identified and tested in three use cases, where different stakeholders are involved.

Moreover, TRUSTS has three business roles – to act as a data market, data market federator and ecosystem facilitator. In the data market concept, data sellers and buyers are directly linked but also depend on infrastructure providers, data marketplace operators and owners, and third-party providers. As TRUSTS sees itself more than just a marketplace there are two additional roles. As a data market federator TRUSTS offers a hierarchical centralised meta platform where data marketplaces, open clouds, brokers, etc. interoperate. As ecosystem facilitator TRUSTS asks which additional roles need to be taken on to make the platform work and to help the wider data economy.

Technical foundation to enable and maintain data sovereignty

As already said, the data market infrastructure of TRUSTS is based on the experiences and technology of the DMA and IDS European data marketplaces. In addition, new elements find their place such as advanced matchmaking based on profiles and brokerage for users and organisations, data governance based on semantic technologies, and designs for interoperability with other data market places.

One of the most important technical goals of the project is to provide the components for privacy-preserving data analytics. For this purpose, it relies on the following building blocks, which will be integrated in a framework for adapting algorithms to preserve privacy and security:

• classifiers and transfer learning
• deep learning
• anonymisation and assessment of deanonymisation risk
• federated deep learning

Legal and ethical pillar – a patchwork of different legal frameworks

To guarantee legitimate data exchange and sustainable results KU Leuven looks at all relevant regulations and ethical principles to develop a solid legal and ethical framework for the TRUSTS platform.

Data markets are based on the commodification of data, however, the law does not consider it as it is quite a new area and a complex issue. It also poses a big challenge due to a patchwork of different legal frameworks that are often context-specific. This applies to both personal and non-personal data. Furthermore, new intermediary roles emerge but the question is: who is responsible for dealing with what? We have to clarify the roles and guarantee trust. Techno-regulation plays a significant role too, where data sovereignty and how smart contracts fit with the law, for instance, is tested.

To analyse the legal and ethical aspects KU Leuven looks at two complementary areas of research: the TRUSTS data market platform ecosystems and TRUSTS use cases. This leads to many different legal frameworks involved such as the data protection law, regulation of data as an economic asset, regulation of data transactions, financial law, blockchain, smart contracts and the law or ethical challenges associated with the use of AI systems.

Stakeholder engagement

To create an innovative and a sustainable business model beyond the lifetime of the project and exploit the full potential, the TRUSTS partners build up a community of stakeholders around the data ecosystem. For this purpose, the TRUSTS partners draft a model of a data ecosystem, define the key stakeholders as well as respective engagement tools and outreach activities, where results and good practices are shared with the stakeholders.

“A vital data economy and a successfully working Data-Services Ecosystem in Europe is one of the factors to enable and ensure sustainable employment and growth and thereby societal stability and well-being.” TRUSTS consortium

As a first step the data landscape (www.datalandscape.eu) is analysed – incl. data providers and users. The next step is to identify stakeholder categories such as Data and Service Provider, Data Consumer, EU Proposal/Project, Competence Center/Digital Innovation Hub, or Technology Platform, and map it with the target group per work package. The results of the stakeholder mapping will be added to the TRUSTS website in form of a landscape map.

Everyone is invited to join the TRUSTS community and contribute to the data economy, just get in touch with us at info@trusts-data.eu.

The next webinar will be at the end of January 2021 and will deal with the topic of TRUSTS business model development in more detail.

Stay tuned and subscribe to our newsletter at the top-right hand corner of the website.

Here you can access the PPT slides and the recording.

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Experts from the TRUSTS project will present their efforts to set up a GDPR-compliant European Data Marketplace based on privacy, confidentiality and data sovereignty.

Alexandra Garatzogianni (L3S Research Center at Leibniz University Hannover), the coordinator of the project along with Gianna Avgousti (eBOS), Christos Roupas (Relational) and Benjamin Heitmann (Fraunhofer FIT) will introduce the goals of TRUSTS. The project aims to create a data sharing platform for personal and industrial use by interconnecting different user groups and providing generic functionalities for innovative applications and services.

The discussion will focus on how anti-money laundering works in TRUSTS and how the use of the IDS architecture will enable data sovereignty and data protection mechanisms. Finally, the panelists will approach the question of how the industry can take advantage of the project results.

The topics in a nutshell:

– TRUSTS use cases and the expertise within the project

– Anti-money laundering

– which mechanisms does TRUSTS apply, how does it work in the eBos environment

– Privacy, confidentiality, data sovereignty

– data protection aspects that are particularly important for the use cases

– Standardization – how data protection and data sovereignty mechanisms in TRUSTS are enabled through their anchoring in the IDS architecture

– View on business exploitation and sustainability

Register now!

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