Review of Ashwinee Kumar
I am a doctoral researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium. I am associated with the research group on Law, Science, Technology and Society (VUB-LSTS) and part of the Health and Ageing Law Lab (HALL), a highly specialised sub-group of the VUB-LSTS. My research trajectory concerns the governance of health data, the data protection rights of patients, both from the perspective of the GDPR and the upcoming European Health Data Space Regulation (EHDS) and the scope of health data access body to act as a Trusted Data Intermediary (TDI). I am also fascinated with the interplay of blockchain technology and health data interoperability, as well as the history and taxonomy of data interoperability. My research interests include the nuances of public interest-based processing of personal data for secondary purposes in the EU. For my PhD research, I am investigating whether the EU is creating new data protection rights, namely the "right to data interoperability" to overcome the limitation of Article 20 GDPR and to boost the cross-border flow of personal data.
Recently, I have had a wonderful opportunity to visit the Institute for Innovation and Digitalization in Law (ID Law) of the University of Vienna, Austria. The visit was from July to September 2024. The stay was goal-oriented, and I achieved the desired result. I am highly indented to Professor Dr Nikolaus Forgó for his support in making it happen and for always showing availability to discuss the topics of my interest. I express my sincere gratitude to him. It was amazing to be with the colleagues representing all corners of the globe with multidisciplinary expertise. It was nice to exchange views with them on different topics, including the newly passed legislations. My sincere thanks to all of them. I also thank a million Dr Malgorzata Wilińska, Martina Wimmer, and Katjia Hartl for administrative as well as logistical support throughout the stay. The institute’s library is very rich, and I took as much benefit from it as I could. I would highly recommend researchers plan a visit or research stay at the institute.
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