Most of data science developments are based on the analysis by machine learning and other Artificial Intelligence methods of huge amounts of data, including users’ preferences. Researchers must be aware that the analyses of users’ practices, modelling their preferences or their behaviour, require access to personal data, which carries ethical considerations as well as the need for new ways to deal with security threats. Data are at the centre of any AI development and deployment. Any trustworthy AI (see High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI) unfolding from them must be (1) lawful, complying with all applicable laws and regulations (2) ethical, ensuring adherence to ethical principles and values and (3) robust, to prevent unintentional harm. These three components are strictly interrelated and require the appropriate bridges we investigate in LeADS. In addition, even the Guidelines for Trustworthy AI do not “explicitly deal with Trustworthy AI’s first component (lawful)”, a gap that LeADS research and training program will cover.

Prevention of harm is an ethical imperative for AI that requires the uttermost attention to prevent malicious uses. Consequently, security has to evolve on an ongoing basis and the security management process should be flexible enough to adapt quickly to the organization security to address these new threats. However, new attacks became more sophisticated and they required correlating all data from security events generated by each IDS in order to be detected. Consequently, Security Information and Event Management systems (SIEM) were introduced on top of IDSs to aggregate/correlate data security events and to propose dashboards. Dedicated SIEMs such as OSSIM or PRELUDE have been deployed. However, with the growing number of security events to consider, the current strategy is to implement a SIEM by using big-data solutions such as the ELK stack (ElasticSearch/Logstash, Kibana). Indeed, this strategy fits with operational scalability issues by facilitating cloud deployments and by providing rich features for data analytics and machine learning-based analysis but requires once again the dual skills LeADS produces with research and training.

The emergence of data science has raised a wide range of concerns regarding its compatibility with the law, creating the need for experts who combine a deep knowledge of both data science and legal matters. INNOV-ACTS LTD is a partner in the EU-funded LeADS project. The project will train early-stage researchers to become legality attentive data scientists (LeADS), the new interdisciplinary profession aiming to address the aforementioned need.

The project has recruited 15 ESRs to be enrolled as Ph.D candidates. These scientists will be experts in both data science and law, able to maintain innovative solutions within the realm of law and help expand the legal frontiers according to innovation needs. The project will create the theoretical framework and the practical implementation template of a common language for co-processing and joint-controlling basic notions for both data scientists and jurists. LeADS will also produce a comparative and interdisciplinary lexicon.

The LeADs project lexicon will provide a common language that will assist producers, service providers, and consumers in managing and contracting over their information assets and data in a less antagonistic and more unitary fashion. A Common language is required for co-processing and joint-controlling key notions for both data scientists and jurists working at the confluence of Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity.

INNOV-ACTS will contribute to the supervision, training and research activities of ESR. INNOV-ACTS is part of the supervisory board of the LEADS project. The company is involved in offering training modules aiming to increase ESRs’ hard and soft skills. INNOV-ACTS will also be hosting a number of ESR secondments aiming to support ESR research training with hands-on examples from the fields of AI, data analytics and security. INNOV-ACTS will also offer individual project mentoring as well as mentor the career development plan of a number of ESRs.