European Declaration on 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 
[https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/digital-principles#tab_2],
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 [https://gdpr-info.eu/], ePrivacy
Regulation
[https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eprivacy-regulation]
and the Charter of Fundamental Rights
[https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/government_in_ireland/european_government/eu_law/charter_of_fundamental_rights.html#:~:text=The%20Charter%20of%20Fundamental%20Rights,with%20the%20Treaty%20of%20Lisbon.].
It plans to build on the experience of the European Pillar of Social
Rights
[https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/economy-works-people/jobs-growth-and-investment/european-pillar-social-rights_en]
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
[https://data.europa.eu/en/news-events/news/2022-international-day-persons-disabilities]–
and to achieve the green transition, as explained in our related data
story
[https://data.europa.eu/en/publications/datastories/open-data-achieve-eu-green-transition]
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
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets?locale=en&minScoring=0] on
data.europa.eu and have a look at our use cases
[https://data.europa.eu/en/publications/use-cases]! 

 

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[https://data.europa.eu/en/newsletter].

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Publication Date/Time
2022-12-07T08:00:00+00:00
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of digital rights and principles