Reformulating Information Systems and Business Innovation through Data Privacy

The present-day world is constantly changing through technological innovation. We undoubtedly live in the big data era, where vast amounts of data is generated through smart applications and services that are used and controlled by the wider public. However, the exploitation of data in terms of sharing and processing has remained hidden from the citizens. Towards this end, a new set of rules was designed to give EU citizens more control over their personal data called GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) . On the other hand, to foster a data-driven society, EU established the European Data Strategy and relevant initiatives to enable data governance, which would in turn facilitate data sharing across different sectors and member states. This is actually a step towards privacy awareness and data transparency, which creates opportunities for both citizens and businesses. To the direction of innovation through the creation of new products and services, all related stakeholders (businesses owners, startuppers, managers of large organizations) should take into account data privacy enhancement and the application of new data sharing approaches. Taking into account these considerations, in our PhD research we study several aspects that contribute in the reformulation of information management systems through data driven innovation. These aspects include the identification of requirements that arise from GDPR legislation, translation of requirements into specific problems, study of available state of the art data sharing solutions and investigation of available related business models. The ultimate aim of the thesis is to shed a light on how to create business innovation through data sharing while respecting data privacy of data subjects.