To better exploit the potential of ever-growing data in a trustworthy European framework, the Commission proposes new rules to facilitate data sharing across the EU and between sectors to create wealth for society, increase control and trust of both citizens and companies regarding their data, and offer an alternative European model to data handling practice of major tech platforms.
The amount of data generated by public bodies, businesses, and citizens is expected to multiply by five between 2018 and 2025. These new rules will allow this data to be harnessed and will pave the way for sectoral European data spaces to benefit society, citizens, and companies. Delivering on the announcement in the data strategy, the Regulation will create the basis for a new European way of data governance that is in line with EU values and principles, such as personal data protection (GDPR), consumer protection, and competition rules. It offers an alternative model to the data-handling practices of the big tech platforms, which can acquire a high degree of market power because of their business models that imply control of large amounts of data. This new approach proposes a model based on the neutrality and transparency of data intermediaries, which are organizers of data sharing or pooling, to increase trust. To ensure this neutrality, the data-sharing intermediary cannot deal in the data on its own account (e.g. by selling it to another company or using it to develop their own product based on this data) and will have to comply with strict requirements.
