About BYTE
For the last few years, policy makers, news outlets and experts across different fields have been talking about the promises and perils of “Big Data”. What they mean is the collection and processing of vast data sets that might be very different and might be moving in near real time.
At the height of this debate, the European Commission asked legal experts, academics, political scientists, technology experts and privacy experts to come together to help the Commission make policies that would enable the benefits of big data, but would also ensure that big data activities were responsible.
The BYTE project was the result of the Commission’s call to action. The project is made up of 11 partners from 10 countries and has run for three full years.
The BYTE project has used “real world” evidence to identify opportunities and challenges in big data processing, including challenges like new business models or privacy concerns. The project used seven case studies in different sectors to identify real achievements and concerns stemming from big data, and problems that could come about in the future, if actors do not take a responsible approach. BYTE used our case studies to identify real challenges and potential solutions to enable responsible big data practice.
The outcome of the project is a research roadmap and a policy roadmap for big data in Europe, based on a vision of responsible and adaptive European innovation.
The research roadmap focuses on what we need to be able to do and what questions we need to answer to enable responsible big data practice moving forward. The policy roadmap focuses on what governments and large institutions need to do to create an appropriate legal and policy space for responsible European innovation. This includes changes to EU US data relations, changes to Intellectual Property Rights and privacy principles as well as support for changing industries.
BYTE Community and Final Event
However, social, ethical and legal concerns remain, and industry needs input from academic experts and citizen groups to further enable responsible big data practice. In response, BYTE is organising a community of legal experts, social scientists and civil society organisations. The purpose of the BYTE Big Data Community is to feed citizens’ concerns directly to industry through the Big Data Value Association (or BDVA for short).
The BDVA is a network of industry and academic practitioners driving data innovations and the BYTE Big data community will be embedded within it.
BYTE is inviting interested organisations to participate in the community to speak directly to industry during BDVA networking events. Community members can also participate directly in setting up research priorities for the European Commission and get involved in designing the European Commission-funded research work programme.
To find out more or to join the BYTE big data community, please visit our website.
There, you can also register for the final conference of BYTE project, where our results will be presented and discussed. The conference will take place in London, UK, on 9 February, 2017.
Attendance is FREE, but registration is required. Limited bursaries to take part at the event are available on request.
We will be explicitly discussing energy and environment, health, and smart cities, and are interested in speakers and participants particularly from these sectors!
Connect with BYTE also on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BYTE_EU
and on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8112322
