Data Access, Transparency of Algorithms and (data subject) Rights – DATARights

Online platforms play a growing role in the circulation of information and in the production of power asymetries in surveillance capitalism. Accessing the data that is necessary to study them is, however, no easy task, given that these platforms often function as closed black-boxes. Several recent scientific publications recently called for the development of the collective use of individual personal data access rights, based on article 15 of the GDPR. This project aims at implementing this idea, which so far has remained a theoretical proposal, into practice. This will be done in several fields, including video streaming services, platform workers and young users of social media. Working with patner civil society organisations, DATARights is first going to establish the precise extent and rules governing data subject access requests, taking into account the latest case law. The implementation of these rules by data controllers will be measured and documented, including the practical obstacles recruited participants may face when trying to exercise their access rights. Recovered data sets will then be shared on a voluntary basis, in compliance with data protection law, and studied collectively to determine its possible uses both for research and for participating data subjects themselves. This will all contribute to the development of new methods taking into account legal and ethical duties regarding i.a. anonymisation, that may then be applied to data sets from Very Large Only Platforms that are due to become accessible to vetted researchers based on article 40 of the new Digital Services Act of the European Union.