European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles
Read to know more about how open data plays a role in the declaration of digital rights and principles
On 14 November 2022, the European Commission, European Parliament and the Council of the European Union reached a political agreement on the European declaration on digital rights and principles , proposed by the Commission in January. Once jointly signed by the three EU institutions, the declaration will set out the global approach to the digital transformation that the EU will take to foster growth, prosperity, security, competitiveness as well as societal well-being across Member States.
In particular, the declaration will complement existing rights, contained for example in the GDPR, ePrivacy Regulation and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. It plans to build on the experience of the European Pillar of Social Rights and will provide guidance to the EU and its Member States in promoting European values within digital transformation.
The declaration also emphasises the importance of freedom of choice in interactions with algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) systems and thus ensuring a fair digital environment by putting people at the center and allow digital technology to benefit all individuals, businesses and society. Additionally, this declarationappeals to increase safety and security for young users in the digital environment.
The six principles contained in the declaration are:
- Putting people and their rights at the centre of the digital transformation;
- Supporting solidarity and inclusion;
- Ensuring freedom of choice online;
- Fostering participation in the digital public space;
- Increasing safety, security and empowerment of individuals;
- Promoting the sustainability of the digital future.
Open data greatly aids in enabling these principles by providing detailed information accessible to everyone. It can support the public administrations to improve the transparency and accountability of their services and processes, while at the same time help citizens make more informed decisions. Open data can also be used by the private sector to develop more inclusive apps – as mentioned in our news piece on International Day of Persons with Disabilities– and to achieve the green transition, as explained in our related data story of August.
Curious to learn more about how open data can support the deployment of the European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles? Discover the more than 1.5 million open datasets on data.europa.eu and have a look at our use cases!
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