Our Standpoints On The European Strategy for Data

Update: The economic circumstances due to the Coronavirus crisis imposes a new perspective. Technology innovation represents the key solution for future economic growth. The EU policy measures proposed before this new context should be reconsidered, now more than ever, and our contribution is intended to support the change of stance.

The Standpoints

• The future EU framework for the data economy should balance the promotion of data access with the need for data protection and privacy. 

• With regard to the future Data Act proposal, we strongly recommend the principle of voluntary sharing of data between businesses (B2B), based on contractual freedom. Mandated sharing of data assets between private actors raises not only risks related to privacy and cybersecurity, but inhibits the commercial incentive to innovate inside the EU. 

• Strong data management and security practices should be key elements in defining the legal and technical frameworks for data sharing. Strengthening resilience in the area of cybersecurity should be a common effort, including both public and private actors. While certain technologies, such as blockchain, may offer good solutions, the legal framework should be future-proof, to allow the adoption of other technologies in years ahead. 

• We support the European data strategy’s main objective: to pave the way for the EU “to become a leading role model for a society empowered by data to make better decisions – in business and the public sector”. We underline, though, that data represents only one of the building bricks of the digital economy in general and for AI development in particular.

• We welcome the proposal to ensure a harmonized approach, and to avoid “overly detailed, heavy-handed ex ante regulation”, opting for “an agile approach to governance that favours experimentation (such as regulatory sandboxes), iteration, and differentiation”.

• We are looking forward to the initiatives for creating the governance framework for common European dataspaces and to initiatives to ensure more high-quality public datasets, which will foster data use for innovative businesses and for public good.

• On future guidelines and remedies within the competition area (related to merger control and data-access and sharing remedies), a precocious approach is recommended, to avoid unintended effects (e.g. on start-up dynamics, privacy constraints). 

• Concerning jurisdictional issues related to data, while providing businesses much needed legal clarity, the risk of data localisation should be avoided. This is also to be considered when setting up rules for public procurement of data processing services and the future cloud services marketplace.

• Data-driven growth of the EU economy is underpinned by the free-flow of data within the Digital Single Market, but also by the data flows with the EU’s major trading partners, as the digital economy doesn’t stop at political and geographical borders. A permanent framework for EU-UK and transatlantic data-flows will provide legal certainty for many businesses, big and small, and will encourage European trade.

• We agree that investments and enhanced efforts are needed to ensure the availability of skilled workforce, but also the general digital literacy. 

• Exploring proposals on ‘personal data spaces’ and digital IDs could offer solutions to empower citizens to use their personal data and access digital services, but also to increase individual accountability in the online spaces, thus responding to concerns related to the control of illegal and harmful content and the governance of online platforms.