Press Release: TRUSTS: European Data Market getting into shape

EU project develops mock–ups and a demonstrator for data market federator

1 December 2021. Heraklion/Hanover/Vienna – mock–ups and demonstrators for a European Data Market as well as a platform federator are being developed within the H2020 innovation action TRUSTS – Trusted Secure Data Sharing Space. The project aims at developing a trustworthy federated platform for personal and non–personal data in Europe.

For several years, numerous initiatives aim at a market–like handling of a secure and sovereign data exchange. There have already been successes in this regard, such as data platforms or data circles on various topics, from which some are happening within national or domain boundaries. Others, such as those of DIO (based on Data Market Austria) and those of IDSA (based on the International Data Spaces standard) aim at cross–domain and cross–border data spaces. By applying this standard, the pan–European data ecosystem TRUSTS is primarily intended to deliver technological added value. The first mock–ups for the TRUSTS platform were already created in 2021, the second year of the project.

Platform builds on user’s needs

A valuable feature planned for the TRUSTS platform is a powerful dashboard, which is adapted according to the user’s role in the platform. For asset contributors, the dashboard provides useful summative information about their contributed assets, such as total revenues, best sellers and top rated assets, asset types contributed per category (data assets, applications, services), sales by billing scheme, and tags that the user employs in their contributions. For content consumers, the home page dashboard aims to suggest content according to the user’s interests (as these have been indicated so far in the platform), promote best–selling and top rated content, but also new and trending content, thus endorsing not only content that is already popular but also new and noteworthy content, giving it good chances to become popular itself.

“It is expected that users will be empowered to find what they are looking for, which is a key motivator for becoming loyal users of the platform. At the same time, the platform urges users who can’t find what they are looking for to describe it through a well–structured form, and notifies them when such content becomes available”, says Stavroula Ntoa, technical scientist at the Institute for Computer Science at the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas and technical designer at TRUSTS.

Trustworthy technology – but how?

Stavroula Ntoa states: “I think that – as in human relationships – trust is difficult to be earned and is directly relevant to feel secure, safe, and protected, but most importantly, trust is built upon consistent behavior evidencing one’s trustworthiness”.

A trusted data market would have to follow the principles of privacy and security by design. It should ensure the anonymization of data, de–anonymization risk analysis, and a secure data exchange – in which data sovereignty is the key factor for success. The fact that data can be exchanged without the data owners losing control over their data will be groundbreaking for future challenges with shared Data. At the same time, it should demonstrate its trustworthiness by having established clear rules and procedures, and by giving the option to users to rate content with regard to its quality, thus ensuring transparency.

Strengthening Europe’s economy with data-driven innovations

This platform, as an outcome of the TRUSTS project, is envisioned to constitute the stepping stone for the deployment of a European federated data market, which citizens can trust. For this additional trials are needed which will be performed in the further course of the project. In 2022, the final year of TRUSTS’ duration, learnings should be gained for the further development of the European Data Ecosystem.