Helena Ursic presented at the Big Data conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia
On May 22 eLaw's researcher Helena Ursic spoke at the international conference "Big Data: new challenges for law & ethics" in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Even though this was one of the first big data and law related events in the region, it was very well organised and has attracted speakers from all across the world. Keynotes were given, among others, by Renata Salecl (Ljubljana University), Joanna Bryson (Princeton University) and Nadya Purtova (Tilburg University).
Helena's talk also referred to the topic of data reuse which is the research focus of the EuDEco project. EuDEco is a H2020 funded project where eLaw participates as one of the consortium members. Helena and her supervisor dr. Bart Custers both actively contribute to the legal research stream.
In Ljubljana, Helena participated in the panel that focused on control of data subjects in the big data era. She pointed to the failure of the idea of individual empowerment in the EU data protection policy by showing how big data undermines the entire control rights catalogue in the GDPR. Following Helena's presentation, Michael Vaele shed light on the right to object to automated-decision making and difficulties of its implementation. The third presentation was given by Wenlong Li who talked about the newly-born right to data portability. Finally, Masa Galic presented a case study from Eindhoven (Stratumseind 2.0) where big data application and the powerlessness of individuals can be observed in practice.
Understanding how big data influences individuals and what sorts of mechanism they have on disposal for protecting their rights is an important part of EuDEco. Individuals, being an inherent part of every economic model, cannot be left out of the discussion on the future of data economy in the EU.
