On November 30 the European Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement on a new law to promote data sharing and facilitate its use for research and the creation of innovative new services and products in the EU.
Among other things, the Data Governance Act (DGA), an important component of the European strategy for data, would create a framework to foster a new business model – data intermediation services– that will provide a secure environment in which companies or individuals can share data.
The DGA, first presented by the European Commission on 25 November last year as the first legislative initiative under the European data strategy, aims to promote the availability of data for reuse across sectors and borders and is expected to play a central role in enabling and guiding the creation of EU-wide common interoperable data spaces in strategic sectors.
The Commission announced last year that it will support the set-up and development of common European Data Spaces, as well as data use between them, in nine strategic domains, as set out in the February 2020 data strategy: health, environment, energy, agriculture, mobility, finance, manufacturing, public administration and skills.
For corporates, these services can take the form of digital platforms, which will support voluntary data-sharing between companies or facilitate the fulfilment of data-sharing obligations set by law. The idea is that by using these services, companies will be able to share their data without fear of its being misused or of losing their competitive advantage.
For personal data, such services and their providers will help individuals exercise their rights under the general data protection regulation (GDPR). This will help people have full controlover their data and allow them to share it with a company they trust. This can be done, for example, by means of novel personal information management tools, such as personal data spaces or data wallets, which are apps that share such data with others, based on the data holder’s consent.
Data intermediation service providers will need to be listed in a register, so that their clients know that they can trust them.The service providers will not be allowed to use shared data for other purposes. Under the proposed rules, they will not be able to benefit from the data – for example, by selling it on. They may, however, charge for the transactions they do carry out.
The DGA aims to create a mechanism to enable the safe reuse of certain categories of public-sector data that are subject to the rights of others. This includes, for example, trade secrets, personal data and data protected by intellectual property rights. Public-sector bodies allowing this type of reuse will need to be properly equipped, in technical terms, to ensure that privacy and confidentiality are fully preserved. The law allows exclusive arrangements for the reuse of public-sector data when justified and necessary for the provision of a service of general interest.
The Commission will set up a European single access point with a searchable electronic register of public-sector data. This register will be available via national single information points.
This week’s provisional agreement still needs to receive formal approvals, but press reports say there is little doubt the agreement will be confirmed.
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RETAIL
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