Proposal for a regulation on a framework for the free flow of non-personal data in the European Union

Summary of CSC's statement:

The free flow of data is crucial for European competitiveness. Europe needs to urgently create a supportive environment as well as a stable and coherent legislative basis for capitalizing on data in creating innovation and growth in Europe. New trends and developments, such as artificial intelligence and platform economy are dependent on data.

However, regulation is not the solution. Europe should avoid building new barriers for data movement. Thus, the need for new regulation should be critically assessed. Instead, active attempts to reduce and harmonize legislation should be made across the Member States. With European legislation we cannot regulate American or Asian actors who already dominate the data-driven markets in Europe – but we only hinder the European data industry.

Removing data location restrictions is not enough for creating efficient preconditions for new data-driven business. More focus should be put on ensuring that the data can actually be used. The EC should actively support the re-use of data between different sectors (commercial, academic and public) and interoperability on all levels:  legal, organizational, semantic and technical. The European Interoperability Framework  should be applied.

Read CSC's statement here (pdf)

European Commission's page