D3I and TDCC RIGHTS at the Data Donation Symposium 2026 in Berlin

On 1 and 2 October 2026, the D3I and TDCC RIGHTS team attended the Data Donation Symposium 2026 at the Weizenbaum Institute in Berlin. The event brought together researchers, developers and policy experts from across Europe to discuss the ethical, technical, legal and practical sides of data donation research.

A panel discussion on the future of data donation in a changing European regulatory landscape highlighted three points for the road ahead:

1. Data Portability APIs are promising. They give researchers, together with other third parties, more leverage than current download/upload approaches.
2. Standardisation needs a community effort. The strong country-level initiatives now underway should start working together on it.
3. Data donation stays uniquely valuable. It offers consensual, informed data access, and it will keep clear advantages even once researcher access under Article 40 of the DSA is working.

These points connect closely to D3I’s work on shared data donation infrastructure and to TDCC RIGHTS’ work on the legal foundations of data donation research.

We’re already looking forward to the next Data Donation Symposium in Budapest, and we’re grateful to Zoltan Kmetty for organising it.

The full programme is available on the symposium website.