Workshop introduction and objective
We live in a world characterized by the multiplication of databases. Calls for the connection between information systems – the so-called database interoperability – are frequent. The European Union (EU) has already adopted legislation aiming at making databases speak to each other, notably in the domain of police and border cooperation. The DATAUNION project – a Starting Grant funded by the European Research Council (2022-2027) – explores the ongoing implementation of several interoperability initiatives, and studies how the construction of a European Data Union shapes European integration in the field of security.
This inception workshop aims at presenting the research agenda of the DATAUNION project, and at bringing it into conversation with scholarly and policy debates focusing on the intersection of digital technologies, EU security politics and fundamental rights. The construction of large-scale databases has already proven crucial to shape and further European security cooperation. Yet, the ongoing efforts to integrate data and make them available across borders and boundaries beg the question of how database interoperability rearranges power relations. Hence, the overall ambition of the workshop to open a conversation about what we can call the “data integration of Europe”.
To this end, the inception workshop brings together scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds – Critical Security Studies, Science and Technology Studies, Law, Digital Humanities – as well as representatives from EU institutions and agencies. The workshop invites both researchers and practitioners to discuss about themes such as European and national interoperability initiatives, the nexus between digital infrastructures and sovereignty, the role of databases in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice or the main dilemmas and controversies accompanying database interoperability.
The Data Integration of Europe is organized by Rocco Bellanova and Barbara Van Belle in the framework of the ERC Starting Grant project “The European Data Union: European Security Integration through Database Interoperability”. DATAUNION is hosted at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, in the interdisciplinary research group Law, Science, Technology & Society (LSTS). The workshop is funded by the European Union (ERC, DATAUNION, project number 101043213). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors (organisers, speakers or discussants) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
Follow us on Twitter and Mastodon!
@DataUnion_ERC [project’s account]
@ikkibop | @ikkibop@assemblag.es [Rocco Bellanova – PI DATAUNION]
@LSTSblog [LSTS account]
Workshop program
09:30-10:00 | Coffee and registration
10:00-10:45 | Welcome and presentation of the DATAUNION project
10:45-11:15 | Coffee break
11:15-12:30 | Data politics, infrastructures and sovereignty
12:30-14:00 | Lunch
14:00-15:15 | A (in)Security Union made of databases
15:15-15:45 | Coffee break
15:45-17:00 | Conflicts and solutions of database interoperability
17:00-17:10 | Closing remarks