VIRT-EU

The increased networking capabilities of pervasive technologies result in personal data being produced, analyzed, monetized and connected to other data streams in ways that hold both enormous potential and pose profound challenges for European society. Recent policy, such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation, reflects mounting public concerns around emerging data practices, responsible research and innovation (RRI), data ethics and privacy. VIRT-EU addresses these concerns at the point of design through researching and intervening upon the development cultures and ethics of the next-generation IoT innovators. We ask how do European IoT innovators and developers make ethically consequential decisions - about code, hardware and data - for new connective devices? What assumptions about human behavior, privacy and freedom underpin European cultures of IoT innovation? Our goal is to develop a Privacy, Ethical and Social Impact Assessment (PESIA) framework and to co-design together with developers tools based on PESIA as well as existing legal and rights frameworks. The main objective of VIRT-EU is to affect the design and development processes of technological innovation by integrating PESIA tools with developer practices, resulting in better alignment with ethical and social values of EU citizens. The project brings together an impressive group of multi-disciplinary researchers ready to engage with socio-technical innovation practices in Europe and with the EU open data policy and regulatory frameworks. Funding Programme This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 732027