- EU draft regulation aims to make Europe the leading “data continent” and promote data exchange within the Union.
- Proposed legislation promotes data sharing, particularly in the healthcare sector for research and individual therapies.
- The focus is on data security: data trustees should act as intermediaries and not be allowed to use data for their own purposes.
- Draft remains vague on criteria for data altruistic organizations and on protection measures for personal data.
The European Commission wants to make Europe the “number one” data continent. With this goal in mind, Single Market Commissioner Thierry Breton and Digital Commissioner Margrethe Vestager presented the Draft regulation on Wednesday, 25.11.2020, in Brussels.
The draft aims to facilitate the sharing of valuable datasets within the European Union, e.g. through exchange mechanisms and technical standards, in order to create added value for society. In the Q&A states that, up to now, it has not been the will that has been lacking for such a functioning exchange of data, but rather the right tools. Specifically, the exchange of (personal) data in the area of healthcare between the public sector and companies, for example, in order to develop individual therapies.
In the past, many stakeholders would have refrained from exchanging data for fear of misuse. The focus of the draft regulation is therefore on data security. Data trustees, who are not allowed to use the (personal) data for their own purposes, are to mediate this between the data source and interested third parties.
This is also intended to increase the confidence of data subjects in the security of their data. At the same time, the commission wants to encourage citizens to “donate data” for charitable purposes. In the future, data subjects should be able to manage who has access to their data and for what purpose in a personal area. They should also be able to organize themselves into data cooperatives.
The draft still reads rather vaguely, for example with regard to the requirements for organizations that can be recognized as charitable (“data altruistic”). The Commission also sees the focus of the new regulation in the use of non-personal data. With regard to personal data, only terse reference is made to the possibility of anonymization and pseudonymization (recital 6). It is therefore to be expected that the regulation will still undergo significant changes by the Parliament and the Council.