The Data Governance Act & The Open Data Directive
Publication Date/Time
2021-02-03T13:00:00+00:00
Country
Europe
Responses from the Member States on how to model the European Strategy
for Data
THE DATA GOVERNANCE ACT

On 25 November 2020, The European Commission published the Data
Governance Act (DGA)
[https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52020PC0767&from=EN]
in response to the public consultation on the European Strategy for
Data
[https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/policies/building-european-data-economy].
The consultation served as a means to gauge stakeholders’ opinions
on the data strategy (including open data, data sharing and data
spaces), and as input for several planned initiatives around access
to, and re-use of, data. A legislative framework on common European
data spaces and an implementing act on a list of high-value datasets
under the Open Data Directive
[https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/european-legislation-reuse-public-sector-information]
was part of the consultation as well.

This featured highlight will explore what the results of the public
consultation are and delve into the Open Data Directive.

CONSULTATION ON THE EUROPEAN STRATEGY FOR DATA

The EU Public Consultation on the European Strategy for Data
[/en/news/public-consultation-eu-strategy-data] received contributions
from various stakeholders, including SMEs, EU citizens, business
associations, academia, research institutes, as well as public
authorities. Results from the consultation fall into four categories:

 	* THE DATA STRATEGY, of which 97.2% of the 806 respondents
confirmed that the EU needs an overarching data strategy to enable the
digital transformation of society, with 91.5% agreeing to the
following statement:

_“More data should be available for the common good, for example for
improving mobility, delivering personalized medicine, reducing energy
consumption and making our society greener.”_
 	* DATA GOVERNANCE,  including data standardisation, secondary use
of data, data donation and data intermediaries. 772 of the 806
respondents answered this section. 90% of the 772 consider data
governance mechanisms necessary to capture the enormous potential of
data, particularly for cross-sector data use.
 	* HIGH-VALUE DATASETS, with some 761 of the 806 respondents
contributed to this section. 82.2% of these respondents answered that
a list of high value datasets (available free of charge, with no
restrictions and accessible via application programme interfaces) are
a good way to ensure that public sector data can have a positive
impact on the EU economy and society. High-value datasets are those
with a high commercial potential and the ability to accelerate the
development of value-increasing information products across the EU.
 	* THE (SELF-/CO-) REGULATORY CONTEXT OF CLOUD COMPUTING, where 61%
of respondents state that the current cloud market offers
technological solutions that businesses need to continue growing and
innovating. However, 48% of 444 stakeholders answered that at one
point they have experienced problems in the functioning of the cloud
market, and 68% of 449 stakeholders expect risks for the future. Going
forward, 59% of responding users and 64% of responding providers state
that self-regulation is appropriate to identify best practices to
implement EU legislation around cloud computing.

THE OPEN DATA DIRECTIVE

As part of the European Strategy for Data, the Open Data Directive
functions as a common legal framework for government-held data (public
sector information) and is geared towards two key concepts in the
European market: i.e. transparency and fair competition. This
directive will be put in place on the national level over the course
of the next years and will ultimately:

 	* Stimulate the publication of dynamic data and the uptake of
Application Programme Interfaces (APIs);
 	* Reduce the exceptions that now enable public bodies to charge more
than marginal costs of dissemination for data re-use;
 	* Extend the scope of the directive to include data held by public
undertakings, under a specific set of rules and research data
resulting from public funding; and
 	* Strengthen the transparency requirements for agreements involving
public sector information between public and private parties, thereby
avoiding exclusive deals.

Furthermore, the directive includes the adoption of a free-of-charge
list of high-value datasets by the Commission. The consultation
indicates that the need for these types of datasets is high among
stakeholders. They will be labelled within a specific thematic
categorisation in the Annex to the directive and act as the building
blocks for Artificial Intelligence solutions.

High-value datasets will become a more prevalent topic over the next
years and the Digital Governance Act as well as the Open Data
Directive provide an initial framework for their arrival and
implementation.

Keep an eye on our upcoming Featured Highlight on Data Talks and stay
tuned for more updates via Twitter [http://twitter.com/EU_DataPortal],
Facebook [http://www.facebook.com/EuropeanDataPortal] or LinkedIn
[https://www.linkedin.com/company/european-data-portal/].
