The Data Governance Act (DGA) - a BusinessEurope position paper

Key messages

• We support the creation of a European model that promotes data sharing and re-use within and across key sectors. This should clarify how sharing and re-use of data can take place and how data that has other rights attached to it will be protected. Businesses need to understand how data can be voluntarily shared whilst upholding those rights.
• We support the growth of public sector data access spaces and encourage all Member States to adopt these practices.
• We support fair, transparent and non-discriminatory procedures to instil a competitive market and enable providers to make data available in a neutral way.
• We support the ability to grant IP adequacy decisions to allow public sector data to flow internationally, however, require more legal certainty on how the Commission would measure and grant such adequacy.
• We support measures that will reduce technical costs of data sharing and re-use through supporting interoperability and data portability principles.
• While we support the growth of a new framework of “data sharing intermediaries” that seek to enable fairer and more neutral data access, we require a more precise definition of this new entity to clearly understand: who will qualify, whether application is mandatory, what services they can offer, what are their liabilities and how their assurance levels can be evaluated and guaranteed.
• We look forward to more information on the Data Act and how it will be coherent with the GDPR, other sector specific legislation and the DGA. The Commission should safeguard a fully coherent framework of shared principles to ensure a fair European data economy.
• We support the rapid development of a new European data altruism consent form to lighten administrative burdens and offer more legal certainty to businesses attempting to gain data subject consent. However, we believe that the co-legislators should include this in the DGA itself instead of waiting for a further implementing act to be adopted.