On Wednesday 25 November 2020, the European Commissions proposed new rules to regulate data governance within the European Union (EU). The implementation of new regulations was already mentioned in the 2020 European Strategy for Data, published in February 2020, which aims to increase trust in technology and help businesses become more digital by giving them confidence and the necessary means.
Data usage is expected to increase by 500% between 2018 and 2025. With this increase, it is important that organisations and citizens across Europe can share data in a secure manner. Through the Data Governance Act, the Commission intends to increase trust by ensuring the neutrality and transparency of data intermediaries and pave the way in creating value to society by fostering the trust of citizens and companies around data sharing. Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, said that the “new regulation will enable trust and facilitate the flow of data across sectors and Member States”.
Moreover, the proposal intends to provide a legislative framework for data governance that respects the EU values and principles and ensures consumer protection digitally. To this end, the proposal includes measures to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), implemented in May 2018, and focuses on the importance of the neutrality and transparency of data intermediaries.
As of December 2020, the lack of trust in data sharing and data spaces, prevents the EU Member States to release and exploit the full potential of data governance. This new regulation intends to combat this by increasing trust in data sharing and creating new EU rules on neutrality to open the market to new intermediaries. Thus, the regulation is designed to address the current problems with data governance to boost data sharing and support European data spaces.
The Advanced Technology for Industry (ATI) project has conducted several in-depth analyses that assess and interpret trends across Europe. These reports highlight the generation and uptake of advanced technologies, the related entrepreneurial activities and venture capital investment, the supply of demand for skills, and the digital opportunities for Europe.