Workshop on data access for research

The recent adoption of the Digital Services Act (DSA) provides a new regulatory framework to increase transparency and accountability of the major online platforms. This regulatory transformation creates the ideal conditions for an in-depth study of the systemic risks associated with the rapid development of the digital technology. In particular, Article 40 of the DSA (Data Access and Control) aims to establish a transparent and clear process for accessing data for research. These new possibilities for data access will increase the collective capacities to identify and analyze systemic risks generated by online platforms.

Arcom has already contributed to the subject by launching a public consultation on data access for researchers. The summary of this consultation, published in June 2023, puts forward a series of proposals for a good implementation of the DSA. The PEReN actively contributes to the discussion around algorithmic audits and participates in the discussion on necessary data access (see the French response to the European consultation on the implementation of Article 40 of the DSA).

To extend these initiatives, the Research Department of Arcom togeter with PEReN are organizing a workshop on data access for researchers. The objective of this workshop is discussing with researchers in which ways their work could be affected by the implementation of the DSA, to assess whether this implementation would solve difficulties related to data access, and to take a closer look at the whole data access process.

The workshop will take place at Arcom headquarters, led by researchers from PEReN and Arcom. We will organise two consecutive panels and an interactive discussion. A few examples of the questions we would like to address are: what data would have been necessary to deepen some of your analyzes? What data would be relevant to request from the platforms as part of the DSA to conduct future studies? What information about algorithms would you need? What metadata?

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Workshop Agenda - Thursday October 12, 2023
[13h30 – 14h00] Welcoming coffee
[14h00 – 16h00] Panel 1: Inna Lyubareva (Institut Mines-Telecom), Esther Onfroy (Defensive Lab Agency), Gilles Tredan (LAAS CNRS)
[16h00 – 16h30] Coffee break
[16h30 – 18h30] Panel 2: Christine Balagué (Institut Mines-Télécom), Anne Bellon (Centre Internet et Société, CNRS), David Chavalarias (CNRS ISC), Becca Ricks (Mozilla), Julien Rossi (CEMTI Paris 8)

We invite interested researchers and civil society to participate. Places will be limited to 20 in order to facilitate exchanges, but an online link will be distributed after registration. Please register before September 12 via the following link and we will contact you to confirm registration. We count on your input and participation to shape the future of data access for research.

Organisation
Arcom : Victor Alamercery, Elisa Mougin, Didier Wang
PEReN : Camilla Penzo, Shaden Shabayek

Contacts
camilla.penzo@finances.gouv.fr, didier.wang@arcom.fr, shaden.shabayek@finances.gouv.fr