Duration: January 2022 until June 2024
The EuroDaT project aimed to design, develop and launch a neutral, transaction-based and non-profit data trustee in line with the European Data Governance Act (DGA). To this end, the state of Hesse founded an operating company, EuroDaT GmbH, within the project period, which has been operational since autumn 2023 and will continue the funding project in an economically independent manner after the end of the project period. The data trustee is based on the federated data infrastructure Gaia-X, which is currently being developed, and will not only enable private companies, public institutions and research facilities to exchange data in a legally secure and confidential manner in the future, but will also open up new avenues for anonymised data analysis. This will promote the development of innovative products and new data-driven business models using AI and big data. With safeAML, a procedure for combating money laundering, there is already an initial use case developed in the project context that has reached market maturity.
In the EuroDaT consortium, the Centre Responsible Digitality (ZEVEDI) was responsible for the sub-project GovLegal, which was dedicated to the legally compliant conception of the data trustee on the basis of the DGA and its prototypical implementation under real-world conditions within the framework of the basic use case. This included, in particular, the design of the governance structure (choice of legal form, statutes, participation opportunities), questions of contract design, and the integration of the data trustee into the complex regulatory framework. In addition, the participating researchers conducted legal assessments of the specific needs of individual use cases and contributed their expertise to the design of them. This was done in close cooperation with eleven partners from business, science and administration: Atos, d-fine, Deloitte, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Hessian Ministry of Economics, Energy, Transport and Housing (HMWEVW), Institute for Legal Informatics at Saarland University, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, Lexemo, TechQuartier, T-Systems International. In addition, Gov-Legal participants actively participated in events, working groups, etc. of the German Gaia-X Hub and maintained an intensive exchange with the accompanying scientific research, for which acatech was responsible, as well as with other BMWK (Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection) funding projects.
ZEVEDI supported GovLegal with its own accompanying research project. This ad hoc project investigated the success and failure factors of the complex interdisciplinary collaboration and cooperation between the participating actors from science, industry and public administration. In this way, weaknesses were systematically identified and recommendations for improving the collaboration of the consortium partners in the overall EuroDaT project and the ZEVEDI sub-project GovLegal were derived.
The results of the third-party funded project EuroDaT were:
- the development and market launch of a transaction-based data trustee (within the consortium)
- the clarification of the relevant legal questions associated with the establishment and operation of the data trustee (in particular a legal classification of the innovative technical approach of encapsulated data processing)
- the legal needs assessment for various use cases in the field of finance
- the development of a prototypical contract kit for data trustees (including model contracts)
- Elaboration of various legal assessments, working papers, statements and scientific publications (including articles in the JuristenZeitung, in RechtDigital and the Jahrbuch Technikphilosophie as well as a handbook on legal issues of data trusteeship)
- the identification of relevant research gaps and questions that have led to follow-up projects (ReFo_DaT – Legal Forms for Data Trustees; DaGarIn – Data Trustees as an instrument to guarantee Freedom of Information); DaTNet – Development of a Competence Network for Data Trusteeship Models)
The project was funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK).
Principal Investigators
Prof. Dr. Petra Gehring, Technische Universität Darmstadt | head of the sub-project | more information
Prof. Dr. Steffen Augsberg, Justus-Liebig Universität Gießen | more information
Prof. Dr. Johannes Buchheim, LL.M. (Yale), Philipps-Universität Marburg | more information
Prof. Dr. Michael Kling, Philipps-Universität Marburg | more information
Prof. Dr. Florian Möslein, LL.M. (London), Philipps-Universität Marburg | more information
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Omlor, LL.M. (NYU), LL.M. Eur., Philipps-Universität Marburg | more information
Prof. Dr. Anne Riechert, Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences | more information
Steffen Augsberg & Johannes Buchheim
Von der Verarbeitung personenbezogener Daten zur personenbezogenen Datenverarbeitung
Zugleich eine datenschutzrechtliche Erläuterung und Einordnung des Modells der transaktionsbasierten Datentreuhand
What forms of data handling harbour risks for personal freedom and equality, to which data protection law has been responding since its inception? Almost 50 years after the first BDSG came into force, we can no longer answer this question abstractly on the basis of the data processed, but only by looking at the specific form and epistemic purpose of the respective data processing processes. Based on this insight, the article shows how the deliberate, technically secure design of data processing processes, in particular through the involvement of data trustees, enables non-personalised use of personal data sets. In this way, the informational potential of data can be used more comprehensively without data-related anonymisation and encryption efforts, without having to give up legitimate interests in shielding information.
Published in: JuristenZeitung (JZ) 79, H. 23/2024, S. 365-375
link to article
Johannes Buchheim, Steffen Augsberg & Petra Gehring
Transaktionsbasierte Datentreuhand
Nutzungsszenarien, Kennzeichen und spezifische Leistungen eines neuen Modells gemeinsamer Datennutzung
Today’s economy is data-driven and data is anything but scarce. Nevertheless, public authorities, private individuals as well as companies still have vast amount of data at their disposal that is unused thus far, partially due to legal hurdles. Therefore, many current regulatory and data infrastructure initiatives aim for recovering these data treasures. Data trustees are considered to be a central tool for achieving this purpose. However, design and functionality of these entities often remain unclear. Thus, instead of linking ambitious expectations with a vague catchy buzzword, concrete concepts are needed. This is the objective of this article.
Published in: JuristenZeitung (JZ) 77, H. 23/2022, S. 1139–1147
link to article
Presentations of the Project
Modulare Vertragsgestaltung durch den Vertragsbaukasten in EuroDaT
Presentation at the Gaia-X Milestone Meeting | Munich, 28 & 29 June 2023
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The European Data Trustee – Neue Wege zur Datennutzung für Forschungszwecke?
Presentation at the scientific conference “Daten.Forschung.Zukunft” on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of DESTATIS | Wiesbaden, 6 July 2023
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