On 18 September, the Horizon 2020-funded VirtualBrainCloud project held a 1-day workshop on GDPR Impact, entitled “Bridging the gap between new technologies, health research and the protection of personal data: GDPR Impact”. The VirtualBrainCloud (TVB_Cloud) project will develop a cloud-based brain simulation platform to support personalised diagnostics and treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. As such, pata protection is an important concern for the project, as the platform will house clinical data from patients and research participants.
The GDPR workshop was hosted by the University of Vienna, which is leading activities on ethical and legal aspects of TVB_Cloud. Moderated by Prof. Nikolaus Forgo and his team in Vienna, the workshop was structured around four sessions focused on 1) privacy, data protection and ethics in healthcare; 2) GDPR and AI-related challenges; 3) data security and AI in the health sector; and 4) technical, legal and ethical challenges of the TVB_Cloud project. The approaches used by different EU countries to ensure patient privacy were presented by experts in the field, and issues with regulatory divergence were discussed in detail. Data security concerns (such as the risk of attacks on data systems) were addressed, as well as the topic of trust and public awareness.
The final session was focused on TVB_Cloud, starting with a presentation of the project by Prof. Petra Ritter (project leader) and including a technical update on the progress of the platform, which aims to provide clinicians with personalised brain simulations to facilitate decision-making and diagnosis. Angela Bradshaw, representing Alzheimer Europe, closed the workshop by presenting an overview of the legal and ethical framework that is being developed for TVB_Cloud.
