EU grant for Bart Custers
The European Commission has granted budget for the project INFORM (Introduction of the data protection reform to the judicial system). Dr. Bart Custers, associate professor and head of research at eLaw, the Center for Law and Digital Technologies, has written the proposal with nine partner organizations for the Directorate-General Justice and Consumers of the European Commission.
As of May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into force. At the same time, EU member states have to implement before that date EU Directive 2016-680 regarding the protection of personal data in criminal law. The main goal of INFORM is to train trainers in all member states, in order to ensure the effective and coherent application of data protection legislation in the judicial system. For this purpose, training materials and methodologies will be developed, information days and workshops will be organized and an e-learning program will be set up. In total 180 trainers will be educated. Within the project, different target groups are distinguished, such as the judiciary, legal practitioners and court staff. eLaw will mainly focus on the introduction of Directive 2016-680 and the judiciary.
The project starts in October 2017 in Sofia, Bulgaria, and will take one and a half years.
Bart Custers coordinates the research proposals for eLaw. During the past year, he received three research grants, totaling approximately half a million euro.