Jonas Breuer

Jonas Breuer is a PhD candidate affiliated with imec-SMIT, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. With a background in European Studies at the University of Maastricht, he holds the international MSc in Communication Studies from the VUB. Before Jonas started his PhD, he had been working at imec-SMIT, VUB for several years as a research associate. In several European and Flemish projects, he worked on the topics of IoT, data markets, data business models, stakeholder engagement, pre-commercial procurement and public service design, always in the light of his main interest: how can we make our cities truly smart? 

His PhD project is all about personal data protection and data markets in the ‘smart city.' Core to the project are data protection impact assessments; introduced in the general data protection regulation as an instrument to foster transparency, hold stakeholders accountable, and strengthen the position of data subjects, i.e., citizens in the case of the city.

Since 2023, Jonas is mainly working for Privacy Salon vzw., a VUB spin-off. Here, he is working on sensibilising and critically informing the broader public, policy makers and industry about privacy, data protection and other social and ethical issues that are raised with the introduction of new technologies in society. His main project is organising the internationally renowned CPDP conference in Brussels.