Urban Brussels #2 | Repair Cafés for Digital Rights | Brussels Centre for Urban Studies

            Each year, the Brussels Centre for Urban Studies launches a call for the funding of several projects, which is open to all VUB research groups and researchers. The awarded projects engage with the broad field of urban studies and with concepts linked to (i) inter-and transdisciplinary perspectives on cities and ‘the urban’, (ii) comparative urbanism and (iii) engaged research connecting academia with other actors and networks, such as NGOs, civil society, government administrations and businesses. The Urban Brussels podcast is a series of 5 twenty-minute episodes aiming to present the evolution of the BCUS awarded projects of 2020. The podcast aspires to introduce each project's main goal, its relation with urban studies, the main activities that took place and the insights that were unravelled. Every episode focuses on one particular awarded project by realising an online discussion with the people most closely involved in its organisation.
          

Listen to the Urban Brussels #2 podcast here! Featuring Gloria González Fuster & René Mahieu (Law, Science, Technology and Society (LSTS)).

In February 2021, the VUB's Law, Science, Technology & Society (LSTS) launched a series of events open to the general public and aimed at exploring ways and approaches that better ensure the effectiveness and authority of individuals’ digital rights. This was realised in collaboration with VUB's Department of Electronics & Informatics (ETRO) and with funding from the Brussels Centre for Urban Studies (BCUS).

"The great thing about this kind of funding is that we could really experiment with new forms that are not generally considered the normal way of doing science. We were really able to get this connection with society, to not really think about law and how that works as a separate discipline but to interact with many different actors, NGO’s and specialists from various departments and fields." (René Mahieu, LSTS)

The Repair Cafés for Digital Rights were organised in Brussels and set out to empower citizens by bringing them together and connecting them with volunteers with relevant legal and technical expertise. These exchanges were further envisioned as means for shedding new light on data practices in the city, as well as the challenges faced by citizens and urban actors when using their rights.

"It is very interesting to reach out to this category of people who have already an idea about data protection rights as they can point out to certain directions, or attempt to use their data protection rights in a semi-organised way. These people are a sort of motivated players of society… There is a correlation between general discontent and knowledge about data protection rights, the more knowledge you have, the more you can pinpoint failures. As soon as you start getting involved, you have more questions." (Gloria González Fuster, LSTS)

During the four public evening events, the Repair Café for Digital Rights - BXL brought together international experts and activists from many locations in Brussels to zoom in on pressing issues related to, amongst others, Wi-Fi surveillance, the impact of ‘digital platforms’ –such as Uber on city life–, and facial recognition.

"Both the speakers and the participants enjoyed very much to not start out from a legal question but to discuss how these rights can function in society." (René Mahieu, LSTS researcher)

A collection of resources by data protection authorities, NGO’s and activists on how individuals can exercise their data protection rights, including practical guidance & templates can be found here.

The project is coordinated by Gloria González Fuster [gloria.gonzalez.fuster@vub.be], René Mahieu, [rene.mahieu@vub.be] and Joris Van Hoboken [joris.van.hoboken@vub.be] from the Law, Science, Technology & Society (LSTS) Research Group (VUB) in collaboration with Ruben De Smet [rubedesm@vub.be] from the Department of Electronics & Informatics (ETRO) (VUB).