Current third-party funded projects
Here you will find current and past third-party funded projects of the Chair of Civil Law, Data Economy Law, Data Protection, Digitization, and Artificial Intelligence.
BMBF-Project "BridgeUp"
The Bridge-Up project researches concepts and develops solutions for a user-friendly and legally compliant implementation of data donor rights and data intermediary obligations, providing a basis for the self-determined participation of data donors in data sharing models. To this end, the project creates two technical modules—focusing on use cases, (data) user interfaces, and technical implementation—as well as two legal modules involving legal assessment, classification, and the creation of document templates. These four pillars are closely interconnected to ensure a holistic approach.
The data trust models envisaged in Bridge-Up specifically focus on the intermediation of sensitive data. In this context, it is essential that data intermediaries fulfill their statutory obligations while granting specific rights to data donors. A particular emphasis is placed on maintaining compliance with data protection laws and the Data Governance Act (DGA), as well as establishing an appropriate level of protection for trade secrets.
BMBF-Project "PRiME"
The project aims to promote the privacy of citizens within the metaverse by developing user interfaces and assessment metrics for privacy protection, while researching design and development processes that integrate user expectations regarding the metaverse. Recently, the metaverse has entered public discourse as a central concept for the next stage of digital evolution. While it holds immense economic potential, it also introduces novel risks to user privacy. In the context of this project, privacy is understood as the comprehensive protection of the personal sphere, as captured through the manifestations of the general right of personality and data protection.
Rather than passively observing the uncontrolled expansion of the metaverse, the overarching goal of this project is to enable citizens—during the early stages of technical development, throughout the research process, and beyond—to engage in an informed discourse on the opportunities and risks that metaverse platforms pose to their privacy and self-determination. Within this framework, the University of Bonn specifically examines whether and how the exercise of fundamental rights by avatars is possible, and how platforms must be designed to effectively facilitate the exercise of personality rights by avatars or the natural persons behind them.
DFG-Project "From Smart Technologies to Smart Consumer Laws: Comparative Perspectives from Germany and the United Kingdom"
Smartphones, tablets, and wearables—devices worn on the body that measure steps taken or calories burned, for example—have become an integral part of many people's everyday lives. All of these devices are part of the Internet of Things, a socio-technological reality that is increasingly coming under the scrutiny of legislators. In a new project, researchers from the Universities of Bonn, Osnabrück, Stirling, and Warwick (both UK) are addressing the question of how consumers can be better protected when using smart devices. The project, described by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as “world-leading,” is scheduled to run for three years and has a total funding volume of around 650,000 euros.
Start-Up Transfer.NRW "Datapods"
The chair is currently conducting the "Datapods" startup project, which is funded by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the European Union. Datapods is dedicated to developing a data intermediary model in the form of a Personal Information Management System (PIMS) application. At present, personal data is scattered across the internet on the servers of various platforms, such as Google or Facebook. Although the GDPR grants users the right to manage their own data, exercising this right proves to be extremely complicated in practice. Data is often difficult to access, and options for querying, deleting, or correcting information are frequently hidden behind complex contact forms, with processing times often taking several days.
Datapods aims to change this. The research project is testing a data intermediary model designed to facilitate the seamless exchange of personal data between data-holding companies and users. The Datapods app functions as a "data cockpit," enabling users to automatically request, visualize, and—if desired—request the deletion of their data.
Website of the Datapods
Past third-party funded projects
BMBF-Projekt "DaRe"
Health Data Trust Sandbox for the Development and Testing of Ecosystem Integration in Data-Driven Health Research (DaRe); Sub-project: Legal and Organizational Modeling and Evaluation.
The project was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and conducted in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Society for the Advancement of Applied Research (Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.).
Project Duration: February 2022 – January 2025
funding code: 16DTM105B