Fede­ral Coun­cil: “Towards a fede­ral data poli­cy”; key data poli­cy parameters

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Take-Aways (AI)
  • Fede­ral Coun­cil defi­nes objec­ti­ves for a coher­ent data poli­cy to pro­mo­te the attrac­ti­ve­ness of Switz­er­land as a busi­ness loca­ti­on and value crea­ti­on through data.
  • DETEC, FDJP and FDHA to draw up key figu­res, legal situa­ti­on and inven­to­ry for open and reusable fede­ral data by end/­mid-2017.

On March 22, 2017, the Fede­ral Coun­cil defi­ned goals with a view to Switzerland’s attrac­ti­ve­ness as a busi­ness loca­ti­on and in the inte­rest of “value crea­ti­on through data” and ins­truc­ted the Fede­ral Admi­ni­stra­ti­on to draft key values for a data poli­cy. This man­da­te is part of the Digi­tal Switz­er­land” stra­tegy, which was adopted by the Fede­ral Coun­cil in April 2016. 

From the Media release:

In the cour­se of a deba­te, the Fede­ral Coun­cil The fol­lo­wing over­ar­ching goals defi­ned for a coher­ent and future-ori­en­ted data poli­cy in Switz­er­land: Pro­mo­ting the attrac­ti­ve­ness of Switz­er­land as a loca­ti­on for the crea­ti­on of value through data, Crea­ti­on of modern legal bases for hand­ling data, ope­ning up data assets as a raw mate­ri­al for the digi­tal socie­ty and eco­no­my. As envi­sa­ged in his objec­ti­ves for 2017, he intends to defi­ne the first bench­marks of his data poli­cy by the end of this year. He has set out the Fede­ral Depart­ment of the Envi­ron­ment, Trans­port, Ener­gy and Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons (DETEC) man­da­tes, tog­e­ther with all other depart­ments and the Fede­ral Chan­cel­lery, to deve­lop the­se benchmarks.

The Fede­ral Depart­ment of Justi­ce and Poli­ce (FDJP) is to be com­ple­ted by the end of 2017. Ana­ly­ze legal situa­ti­on for fur­ther use of per­so­nal data, fac­tu­al data and anony­mi­zed data. The Fede­ral Depart­ment of Home Affairs (FDHA) is curr­ent­ly inven­to­ry­ing the fede­ral government’s data hol­dings in order to iden­ti­fy sui­ta­ble data for publi­ca­ti­on on opendata.swiss. By mid-2017, the FDHA will eva­lua­te this work and inform the Fede­ral Coun­cil. The results of the assign­ments to the FDJP and the FDHA will be incor­po­ra­ted into the initi­al bench­marks of a data poli­cy to be drawn up. 

It is to be hoped that this busi­ness-fri­end­ly atti­tu­de will be incor­po­ra­ted in the fur­ther legis­la­ti­ve pro­cess for the revi­sed DPA. Various comm­ents during the con­sul­ta­ti­on pro­cess have in any case refer­red to the Digi­tal Switz­er­land Strategy.