PriDI
Privacy-enhancing digital infrastructures
The project
"Privacy-enhancing digital infrastructures" - for fundamental rights-compliant and data protection-friendly internet searches
How can searches on the internet be designed in a way that respects fundamental rights and protects privacy? Over the next three years, teams from the University of Kassel and the Open Search Foundation in Starnberg will be investigating this question in the PriDI research project.
To this end, they are supporting the development of an open European search infrastructure at the interface of law, society and business informatics. The aim is to anchor fundamental values such as privacy and data protection in the sense of "values by design" in an open European web index that is currently being developed.
In order for this newly emerging open search infrastructure to be fully effective, it must be designed in accordance with fundamental rights.
Researchers from the Open Search Foundation and the University of Kassel will support the ongoing activities of the European "Open Search Initiative" to develop an open search infrastructure with legal and business informatics expertise and carry out a technology and data protection impact assessment for the area of open internet search. The aim of the project is to support the design of the emerging open web index and the search engines based on it by answering legal questions. The project plan also includes requirement and design models, such as guidelines for companies on how they can use the open web index in compliance with fundamental rights.
Questions need to be answered, for example, in the context of the "right to de-index". The impact and application of European legal acts such as the Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act and AI Act on an open search infrastructure must also be examined. Data governance issues also play an important role. The aim is to align the design of an open search infrastructure with the fundamental rights and principles that the European Commission has also declared to be the benchmark of the "Digital Decade".
The project aims to identify (fundamental) legal requirements for an open web index and the services based on them and to make them available to the designers and developers of the open web index in an understandable way.
Further information can also be found on the project website.
Funding
The PriDI project is part of the BMBF-funded Platform Privacy (duration 03/2024 - 02/2027). The BMBF is funding the entire joint project for three years with 1.29 million euros.
Project partners
- University of Kassel, Department of Information Systems and Systems Development: Prof. Dr. Matthias Söllner.
- University of Kassel, Department of Public Law, IT Law and Environmental Law: Priv.-Doz. Dr. Christian Geminn.
- Open Search Foundation e. V., Starnberg: Dr. Stefan Voigt.
Contact