01 December 2020

Last Wednesday the European Commission proposed new rules on data governance. Their aim is to exploit the high amounts of data created every day, but within a trustworthy European framework. These new rules will allow European data to be harnessed and allow specific European data spaces to benefit society, citizens and companies. The Commission has proposed nine data spaces in February 2020’s data strategy, ranging from industry to energy, and from health to the European Green Deal. 

Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, said: “We are defining today a truly European approach to data sharing. Our new regulation will enable trust and facilitate the flow of data across sectors and Member States while putting all those who generate data in the driving seat. With the ever-growing role of industrial data in our economy, Europe needs an open yet sovereign Single Market for data. Flanked by the right investments and key infrastructures, our regulation will help Europe become the world's number one data continent.”

The DSA proposal (Proposal for a Regulation on European data governance (Data Governance Act) published by the EC is a key step in the construction of the EU digital single market. Policy Cloud is exactly the type of instrument which will be able to exploit these large quantities of data in order to benefit society, citizens, and companies, while protecting the data and ensuring GDPR standards are maintained. This will be realised in part through a data marketplace, bringing together the positive aspects of data lakes and data warehouses into a single product which allows stakeholders to meet their data needs. Our four Pilots are already starting to show how Policy Cloud can use big data to combat radicalisation, to enhance the food value chain, to improve the urban environment, and to better take care of citizens. Policy Cloud will monitor carefully the next steps, aiming to realize an effective big data based policymaking platform, while ensuring the freedoms and rights of both individuals and organizations.  

The EC Regulation includes:

  • A number of measures to increase trust in data sharing, as the lack of trust is currently a major obstacle and results in high costs.
  • Create new EU rules on neutrality to allow novel data intermediaries to function as trustworthy organisers of data sharing.
  • Measures to facilitate the reuse of certain data held by the public sector. For example, the reuse of health data could advance research to find cures for rare or chronic diseases.
  • Means to give Europeans control on the use of the data they generate, by making it easier and safer for companies and individuals to voluntarily make their data available for the wider common good under clear conditions.

Find out more about how Policy Cloud’s pilots harness data for better policy making!