Today, the European Commission presented a Communication outlining policy and legal solutions to promote the EU data economy as part of its Digital Single Market strategy presented in 2015. Among other things, this Communication considers legal uncertainties related to the emerging data economy, for which effective policy responses are needed. The following aspects are essential:
- Data location restrictions: The Commission seeks to reach out to Member States and stakeholders to discuss the nature and proportionality of data localization restrictions, their impact on businesses and public sector organizations as well as appropriate enforcement actions to address unjustified or disproportionate data location restrictions.
- Data access and transfer: The widespread use of non-personal and machine-generated data can lead to great innovations, startups and new business models born in the EU.
- Liability related to data-based products and services: The current EU liability rules are not adapted to today's digital, data-driven products and services.
- Data portability: Portability of non-personal data is currently complicated, for example, when a business wants to move large amounts of company data from one cloud service provider to another.
Andrus Ansip, Vice-President for the Digital Single Market, commented on this: "Data should be able to flow freely between locations, across borders and within a single data space. In Europe, data flow and data access are often held up by localisation rules or other technical and legal barriers. If we want our data economy to produce growth and jobs, data needs to be used. But to be used, it also needs to be available and analysed. We need a coordinated and pan-European approach to make the most of data opportunities, building on strong EU rules to protect personal data and privacy."
Source: European Commission
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