Every day and nearly all the time, citizens transmit data to their various counterparts and business partners as customers, users, participants, applicants or even as patients. The European Commission reports evidence of massive data breaches and the mishandling of personal data by large online platforms.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies since 25 May 2018. Specifically, Article 20 has the purpose of making it significantly easier for citizens to have any data which is stored with one service provider transmitted directly to another provider. This means that providers of data processing services must adopt interoperable formats that enable data portability as soon as possible.
A standard operating procedure which is clear, feasible and predictable seems to provide good protection. However, it is still unclear how this theoretically plausible portability will be implemented. In this uncertain and underdeveloped path, advanced research is needed to set the principles to allow the implementation of Data Portability solutions and give the concerned persons better control over their personal data.
Under the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative, the Data Portability and Services Incubator (DAPSI) was launched in November 2019, to empower top internet innovators to develop human-centric technology solutions addressing the challenge of personal data portability on the internet as foreseen under the GDPR.
DAPSI supports around 50 teams that research and develop relevant use cases through a 9-month incubation programme. Experts in diverse fields provide a successful working methodology, access to top infrastructure, training in business and data related topics, coaching, mentoring, visibility and community building. On top of that, each DAPSI team can receive up to €150k€ equity-free funding, distributing a total amount of €5.6M€ through three open calls.
In the first phase of the DAPSI incubation program, the teams define and develop advanced research activities in a specific Data Portability subdomain, attend training sessions, pitch and access top infrastructures, with coaching support. They progress to phase 2 where the use cases are fostered to evolve into solid projects to gain enough traction for deployment and readiness for the market.
The project is operated by 6 experienced partners that involve the selected teams in a vibrant open ecosystem: Zabala Innovation Consulting (Spain), F6S (Ireland), Cap Digital (France), IMT Starter (France), Fraunhofer IAS (Germany), and Engineering (Italy).
Acknowledgement
NGI DAPSI has received funding from the European Union’s H2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement no 871498