International law firm Bird & Bird joins LeMO, an EU funded (€1.49 million) research project, set to explore the implications of the use of big data on the economic sustainability and competitiveness of the European transport sector.
Bird & Bird's Tech & Comms team in Brussels recently joined the consortium LeMO (Leveraging Big Data to Manage Transport Operations). The three year project will analyse big data in the European transport industry, addressing five transport areas: mode, sector, technology, policy and evaluation. The goal of the project is to identify how the potential benefits associated with big data can be used to improve the European transport industry.
Following outstanding work on two other EU funded projects: TOREADOR and Coco-Cloud, Bird & Bird was invited to join the consortium along with four other partners: Vestlandsforsking (Western Norway Research Institute), The Frankfurt Big Data Lab at the University of Frankfurt, The Confederation of Organisations in Road Transport Enforcement and Panteia B.V. to work together on the project.
The Brussels team advising on the project comprises partner Benoit Van Asbroeck and associates Julien Debussche and Jasmien César. The team will carry out legal research and analysis on an array of specific legal issues related to privacy and data protection (including relevant elements of the GDPR), data ownership and intellectual property rights, security, liability as well as the contractual aspects of the project. The team will also provide the necessary legal support to the other partners, WPs and Pilots.
Benoit Van Asbroeck, Tech & Comms specialist and partner at Bird & Bird said "We are delighted to have been invited to join the LeMO research project. Bird & Bird specialises in designing innovative legal solutions for technology based businesses. Our involvement in this project will not only allow us to apply our extensive experience in both data privacy and big data to provide the project with a legal framework but also to formulate recommendations for future policies.We are confident we can make a difference."
The aim of the LeMO consortium is to address the needs and concerns of science experts, transport industry leaders, policy-makers and European citizens in order to drive the big data economy forward, with a specific focus on the European transport sector. The group will then develop a policy and research roadmap aimed at improving the European transport industry.
The LeMo project is financed by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union under Grant Agreement number: 770038.
