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In the EncroChat operation, French law enforcement authorities collected over 120 million messages from 60.000 EncroChat users. They cooperated with Dutch law enforcement authorities and Europol in a Joint Investigation Team. In the Netherlands, EncroChat data has already been used in over 200 criminal cases. This article examines what lessons can be learned from the Dutch experience with the EncroChat operation from a human rights perspective, in particular the right to a fair trial.

Our societies rely on quality academic and scientific research and journalism to thrive and prosper. They also depend on them to find solutions to address common challenges, including the climate emergency, global public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and ongoing armed conflicts and humanitarian crises. A necessary condition for public-interest research and journalism is access to data unencumbered by unnecessary legal barriers. And while the value of research and journalism is vastly recognized as a principle and important pillar of free and democratic societies, several recent legal developments have tended to undermine such principles and raise barriers to access to data, including publicly available data. Examples include copyright law (including sui generis database rights) as well as privacy and data protection laws. Acknowledging the critical need to protect privacy as a fundamental right, we nonetheless recall the need to uphold equally important rights of access to information, unconstrained research, and media freedom, in a fair and balanced manner, guided by the public interest. Commemorating the ten-year anniversary of the tragic death of data access activist and digital rights champion Aaron Swartz, this article examines the policy legal landscapes in the European Union and in the United States, two jurisdictions with rapidly shifting norms and expectations regarding access to data. It offers recommendations to strike a necessary balance between privacy and data protection on the one hand, and research and journalism freedoms on the other, as a means to support better sharing of data in the public interest. It also calls for more examples from other jurisdictions, so as to enable a more complete understanding of the issue and a more global approach to supporting researchers and journalists on the international level.&nbsp

The May 2022 proposal from the European commission for a ‘European health data space’ envisages advantages for health from exploiting the growing mass of health data in Europe. However, key stakeholders have identified aspects that demand clarification to ensure success. Data will need to be freed from traditional silos to flow more easily and to cross artificial borders. Wide engagement will be necessary among healthcare professionals, researchers, and the patients and citizens that stand to gain the most but whose trust must be won if they are to allow use or transfer of their data. This paper aims to alert the wider scientific community to the impact the ongoing discussions among lawmakers will have. Based on the literature and the consensus findings of an expert multistakeholder panel organised by the European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) in June 2022, it highlights the key issues at the intersection of science and policy, and the potential implications for health research for years, perhaps decades, to come.

This framework document describes basic access criteria and procedures under which the access and use of samples and data facilitated by BBMRI-ERIC are realized. The access procedure is described step-by-step, from registration to the completion of access, at the Pan-European and national levels. BBMRI-ERIC operates as a facilitator in the provision of access; while the local biobanks stay in control of granting access based on their existing access policies, proper peer review and ethical assessment of research proposals. By introducing and further implementing these access criteria and procedures, BBMRI-ERIC offers the service of taking the European collections of biological resources to a new level of coordination, efficiency and usage for the health of EU citizens and beyond., ADOPT BBMRI-ERIC Deliverable D4.1

CD-ROM; International audience; In past years there has been substantial funding from the European Commission to develop information systems on solar radiation data, such as the European Solar Radiation Atlas, the projects SoDa, Satel-Light, PVGIS, PVSAT, PVSAT-2 or Heliosat-3 and the Envisolar project of the European Space Agency (ESA). Additionally national services were set up as Meteonorm by Meteotest in Switzerland and SOLEMI by DLR in Germany. From the regional point of view, the projects focused mainly on Europe or its regions, leading to the situation that several different data bases exist in parallel developed by different approaches, including those exploiting satellite data. Large steps forward have been made for the benefit of research, renewable energy industry, policy making and the environment. Nevertheless, these multiple efforts have led to a fragmentation and uncoordinated access: different sources of information and solar radiation products are now available, but uncertainty about their quality remains. Although a number of institutions have developed approaches for solar energy resource assessments, the individual methods have not been cross-compared and benchmarked. Validation covered mainly the developed methods. At the same time, communities of users lack common understanding how to exploit the developed knowledge. The project MESoR is a European funded Coordination Action which aims at removing the uncertainty and improving the management of the solar energy resource knowledge. The project includes activities in user guidance (benchmarking of models and data sets; development of a handbook on best practices on how to use solar resource data), unification of access to information (by adopting a Service Oriented Approach (SOA) through the extensive use of Web Services offering a one stop-acces to remotely located databases) use of advanced information technologies; offering one-stop-access to several databases), connecting to other initiatives (INSPIRE of the EU, POWER of the NASA, SHC and PVPS of the IEA, GMES/GEO) and to related scientific communities (energy, meteorology, geography, medicine, ecology), and dissemination (stakeholders involvement, future R&D, communication). The results of past and present large-scale initiatives in Europe, will be integrated, standardised and disseminated in a harmonised way to facilitate their effective exploitation by stakeholders. This coordination action will contribute to preparation of the future roadmap for R&D and strengthening the European position in the international field.

Data science journal 5, 79 - 83 (2006). doi:10.2481/dsj.5.79, The 'Berlin Declaration' was published in 2003 as a guideline to policy makers to promote the Internet as a functional instrument for a global scientific knowledge base. Because knowledge is derived from data, the principles of the 'Berlin Declaration' should apply to data as well. Today, access to scientific data is hampered by structural deficits in the publication process. Data publication needs to offer authors an incentive to publish data through long-term repositories. Data publication also requires an adequate licence model that protects the intellectual property rights of the author while allowing further use of the data by the scientific community., Published by CODATA, Paris

As things stand today, whether we like it or not, industry funding is on the upswing. The whole enterprise of medicine in booming, and it makes sense for industry to invest more and more of one's millions into it. The pharmaceutical industry has become the single largest direct funding agency of medical research in countries like Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Since the goals of industry and academia differ, it seems that conflicts of interest are inevitable at times. The crucial decision is whether the public welfare agenda of academia, or the corporate research agenda of industry, should occupy center stage when they conflict. There is enough evidence to show that funding by industry is very systematic, and results that are supportive of the safety and efficacy of sponsor's products alone get the funds. It is no surprise, therefore, that one finds very few negative drug trials reports published, and whatever are, are likely to be by rival companies to serve their commercial interests. Renewed and continued funding by industry decides the future prospects of many academic researchers. At the same time there is now evidence that pharmaceutical companies attempt suppression of research findings, may be selective in publishing results, and may delay or stymie publication of unfavourable results. This is a major area of concern for all conscientious researchers and industry watchers. Industry commonly decides which clinical research/trial gets done, not academia, much though the latter may wish to believe otherwise. It finds willing researchers to carry this out. This can be one area of concern. Another area of pressing concern is when industry decides to both design and control publication of research. It makes sense for researchers to refuse to allow commercial interests to rule research reporting. Research having been reported, the commercial implications of such reporting is industry's concern. But, doctoring of findings to suit commerce is to be resisted at all costs. In this even pliant researchers need have no fear, for if they indeed publish what will work, the concerned sponsor will benefit in the long run. The only decision academia has to make is refuse to comply with predestined conclusions of sponsors for the 'thirty pieces of silver'. Instead do genuine research and make sixty for themselves. The useful rule of thumb is: Keep the critical antenna on, especially with regard to drug trials, and more especially their methodology, and study closely the conflict of interest disclosed, and if possible undisclosed, before you jump on the band wagon to herald the next great wonder drug. There are three important lessons to be learnt by academia in all academia-industry relationships: i) Lesson number one: incorporate the right to publish contrary findings in the research contract itself. Which means, it makes great sense for academia to concentrate on the language and contractual provisions of sponsored research, to read the fine print very closely, and protect their research interests in case of conflict. ii) Lesson number two: a number of lawsuits successfully brought up against industry recently reflect earnest attempts by patient welfare bodies and others to remedy the tilt. It will result in a newfound confidence in academia that augurs well for academia industry relationship in the long run. Hence the second lesson for academia: do not get browbeaten by threats of legal action iii) Lesson number three: Academia should keep itself involved right from inception of the clinical trial through to ultimate publication. And this must be an integral part of the written contract. The time to repeat cliches about the exciting future of the academia-industry connect is past. A concerted effort to lay a strong foundation of the relationship on practical ethical grounds has become mandatory.