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Abstract

The research I’ve been working on under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Sarita Albagli focuses on the legal challenges surrounding the use and governance of data in citizen science (CS) projects. We examine how diverse legal frameworks, including copyright, personal data protection, and the protection of traditional knowledge, interact and often conflict in the management and reuse of citizen-generated data. Our findings indicate that current literature tends to prioritise privacy and IP concerns while overlooking collective rights and contexts from the Global South. They also reveal the inadequacy of the current legal framework when applied to CS projects, including the narrow scope of copyright limitations and exceptions and the uncertainty as to whether CS initiatives qualify as “scientific research” or academic endeavours for applying legal flexibilities.

Recently, our work has also explored how artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are used both within and around CS. While AI can support species identification and data classification, the same citizen-generated content may later be reused to train generative AI systems, raising legal questions across copyright, data protection, and collective rights. We are also investigating the possible outcomes of the AI Bill currently being discussed in the Brazilian Congress, which introduces new provisions on transparency, remuneration, and data use for AI training. Considering that generative AI systems increasingly rely on large-scale data scraping, collaborative platforms and repositories face growing pressures. Thus, we seek to explore how legal frameworks may foster the sustainability and governance of commons-based infrastructures and support the ethical reuse of citizen-generated data.