EUU, Alm.del - 2019-20 - Bilag 671: Notat og høringssvar vedr. Kommissionens datastrategi

Europaudvalget 2019-20
EUU Alm.del Bilag 671
Offentligt

NOTAT

26. maj 2020

The Danish Government’s response to the public consultation on the

European Strategy for Data

The Danish Government welcomes the European Strategy for Data. Avail-

ability and use of data are prerequisites for the development of digital tech-

nologies and tools that can spur growth and thus contribute significantly to

the economic recovery after the covid-19 economic backlash as well as

strengthen health systems for future global health crises.

Following remarkable results such as the legislation on free flow of data,

GDPR and open data, the data strategy should have the overall aim of cre-

ating a genuine single market for data. As the spread of the coronavirus has

shown, data is a crucial element in EU's economy, not only as a distinct

data economy, but indeed as a tool to fight the pandemic, as well as enable

businesses, researchers and health systems to be innovative in a time of

comprehensive restrictions on physical appearance and sale.

As a general remark, it is paramount that data and digitalisation serve the

interests of society. We should find a European way for digitalisation where

responsibility, ethics and safety go hand in hand with innovation and

growth. The digital transformation should be characterized by a high de-

gree of trust and safety as well as a strong digital competitiveness based on

an innovation friendly and technology neutral regulatory framework with-

out unnecessary burdens and barriers. The data strategy should support this

transition which must contribute to a green economy as well.

Common European Data Spaces

Furthering the availability of data and making it easier for public and pri-

vate actors, such as researchers, public authorities and businesses, to share

data among each other is an important part of strengthening Europe’s digi-

tal capacities and competitiveness. Therefore, the Danish Government sup-

ports the intention of establishing European data spaces.

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The Commission’s intention to clarify the

rules on data sharing between

and within the private and the public sector is timely and important. As part

of a legislative framework on governance of data spaces, the Danish Gov-

ernment would urge the Commission to clearly define data ownership and

data accountability. For both public and private actors, in particular small

and medium sized enterprises (SME's), this would help reduce uncertainty

about legal use of data and data protection requirements, thereby also re-

ducing potential barriers for data sharing within the common European data

spaces. It should be noted though,

that there is no “one size fits all” across

all sectors, which must be taken into due account.

When establishing the common European data spaces, it is important to

strike a balance between clearly defined roles, rules and criteria and at the

same time make room for innovation and quick responses to new technol-

ogies and market demands that change over time. This need for flexibility

calls for a decentralised infrastructure. Also, it is essential that the data

spaces build upon Member State’s

national

regulation and principles as

well as local circumstances in different sectors, such as existing data infra-

structure and national initiatives.

Therefore, The Danish Government encourages the development of data

spaces as ‘soft infrastructures’ based on technical and legal frameworks

rather than actual, physical data pools. With this approach data sharing

would become much easier for EU businesses and easier to keep the data

secure and to ensure control over who accesses what data for what pur-

poses. Especially for sensitive personal data collected by the public sector,

it is essential that the public authorities in Member States maintain control

over the use of data for the purpose of data security and citizens' trust.

These frameworks should enable decentralised data sharing, where public

and private actors can easily share data with numerous business partners by

using a common framework, while protecting personal data and without

compromising business critical data.

For businesses, this would reduce uncertainty and the need for companies

to draft up new, extensive contracts and for developing new technical data

sharing measures each time a new data sharing agreement is made. An ex-

ample of such a decentral ecosystem is the initiative Nordic Smart Govern-

ment

[1]

. The purpose is to enable standardised economic business data to

be easily accessible and usable to benefit both businesses and authorities.

This is done by aligning the digital business systems, i.e. the SME's ac-

counting systems, with other systems processing business data.

[1]

https://nordicsmartgovernment.org/

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When developing the data spaces, harmonisation, standardisation and in-

teroperability should be key words, as these are prerequisites in order to to

make data reusable. This applies to sharing of high-quality data in general

and it is particularly important if the common data spaces are to bring value

to data users across Europe. To realise the potential of the common data

spaces, strong governance on common standards is, thus, a prerequisite. A

strong governance framework is needed to ensure that the data spaces are

indeed common European data spaces. The Danish Government looks for-

ward to contributing to legislative work concerning governance of data

spaces and underlines the importance of continuously maintaining the

standards chosen.

Standardisation efforts include introducing common standards on data

quality, definition of datasets and data objects. The guiding principle

should be to generalise as much as possible -

such as standards for API’s –

but only to the extent that the gains from implementing these generic stand-

ards exceed the costs of implementing such standards. It is key, however,

that Member States and the European Commission work together to pre-

vent unnecessary duplication and ensure a solid governance. Generally, fo-

cus should be on promoting standards that are already widespread in order

to avoid imposing unnecessary transition costs on authorities and busi-

nesses who have already initiated data sharing measures.

As opposed to this approach, a collection of unstructured data in centralised

data pools will not bring real value to users such as researchers, start-ups

and SMEs, as they will have difficulties investing the amount of money it

takes to structure and standardise data to make it usable. Therefore, the

Danish Government advises against constructing centralized platforms that

contain all shared data, as this approach would be unnecessarily costly and

maintenance-heavy while not bringing the results, we are aiming for.

It is important to underline the importance of public authorities in Member

States maintaining control over the use of data for the purpose of data se-

curity and citizens' trust, especially when it comes to sensitive personal data

collected by the public sector.

A Differentiated, Sector-Specific Approach

Standardisation is an important prerequisite for high data quality and in-

teroperability across sector domains. However, this comes at a prize for

authorities and businesses responsible for distribution of data.

The Danish Government suggests that proportionality should be the guid-

ing principle when deciding on the granularity of mandatory requirements

to data quality and interoperability, while cost-benefit analyses could be a

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relevant tool to estimate proportionate efforts. Not all data need to be avail-

able in the highest technically possible quality and not all data are relevant

to share e.g. in real-time. The higher the requirements are, the more expen-

sive it becomes for public authorities and for SMEs and start-ups to partic-

ipate.

There is a need to focus the effort on data in sectors with significant societal

challenges, such as climate change, which can be addressed by increased

data access, sharing and use. Likewise, sectors that are expected to have

the greatest economic and public beneficial potential tied to data access,

sharing and use should be prioritised, as enabling job creation, innovation

and the development of new business models is increasingly important in

the wake of the corona crisis. From the Danish perspective these include

energy, green deal, industrial (manufacturing), agriculture, health, the fi-

nancial and mobility sectors. Within the financial data space, we would

propose to include a focus on economic business data, which are part of the

sales and purchase processes of all businesses and therefore has a huge po-

tential to reduce barriers on the Single Market, if data are standardised,

portable and interoperable.

Therefore, the Danish Government recommends a differentiated approach

when drafting a legislative framework for governance on common Euro-

pean data spaces. For sectors and data spaces of high importance and high

priority for Europe, we should aim for the highest quality and standards. In

the wake of the corona crisis, not all sectors will be equally important, and

we should focus on the ones that matter the most for businesses in a green

and innovative economy.

A generic framework for data spaces must be supplemented by sector spe-

cific international or European standards, that are compatible and thus still

support the development of services and products that combine data from

different sectors. There is a need for the Commission to specify the differ-

ence between the sector specific data spaces and the horizontal green deal

data space. Also, the Danish Government requests that the underlying rea-

sons for choosing the nine selected sectors are elaborated.

The Danish Government furthermore suggests that the Commission con-

siders clear coordination between selected data spaces and the focus of

Open Data Directive on the high-value data sets when relevant.

Implementing Act on High-Value Datasets

Access to high-quality public sector data enables data driven innovation

and growth, especially when data are available free of charge for busi-

nesses, authorities and citizens. This is also reflected in the Open Data Di-

rective, where the Commission has initiated a process of identifying high-

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value datasets within six thematic categories. The Danish Government sup-

ports the approach of promoting certain datasets based on their potential to

create socioeconomic and environmental benefits and innovative services,

while also considering the number of users, especially SME's. When se-

lecting datasets of high value, interoperability should be pursued by relying

on internationally well-acknowledged standards, which are used widely by

Member States.

Data sharing B2B and B2G

Sharing of data for the public good has interesting perspectives. When an-

alysing different models of data sharing, the guiding principle should be

creating incentives for businesses to share data for a purpose, such as ena-

bling the green transition of the economy. A clear incentive for businesses

could be in the form of access to other businesses’ data (by entering a data

sharing network). For some businesses value could be created through eco-

systems around their products and sharing of data within that ecosystem.

Other models for data sharing could involve financial compensation for

high-quality data enabling new business models.

It is important, however, to carefully analyse which models of data sharing

that would lead to the realisation of benefits for all involved parts. As a

basic rule, business to business (B2B) and business to government (B2G)

data sharing should be voluntary. The Danish Government would not rec-

ommend imposing regulation on mandatory B2B or B2G data sharing as

this could lead to distortion of competition and impose great costs and ad-

ministrative burdens on businesses as well as the authorities who are tasked

with enforcing such a regulation. Moreover, a mandatory approach could

potentially result in sharing of excessive and inconveniently large volumes

of data that might not be reusable due to poor data quality or incomplete

data sets. Thus, mandatory B2B or B2G data sharing should only be con-

sidered in cases where the potential benefits are proportionate to the costs

and where this is in accordance to Member States competences.

In connection to the efforts made to increase B2B and B2G data sharing,

the Danish Government suggests that the Commission also considers initi-

ating concrete measures that support data altruism (citizens voluntarily

sharing the data they generate for the public good). Increased access to cit-

izens’ data could enable the development of innovative green solutions and

services that would benefit the European citizens.

Further work on this needs to be closely coordinated with initiatives on data

spaces. When considering new initiatives in this field, it is important ex-

plicitly to describe what data can be used for and by whom and to make

sure, initiatives are carried out in a responsible way to address potential

data ethical issues.

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Cloud

Regarding the suggestion to establish a European cloud infrastructure, the

Danish Government emphasizes that authorities and businesses should be

able to participate on an open and transparent basis. The European ap-

proach to cloud infrastructure should build on interoperability and focus on

user needs. EU businesses need access to the best cloud-services in terms

of quality and prices in order to thrive in the global competition.

The situation described in the Commission’s data strategy

regarding low

uptake of cloud technology, particularly in the public sector, are well-

known, as are many of the challenges mentioned, such as vendor lock-in,

legal uncertainties etc. Currently, the Danish Government is mainly pursu-

ing legal and organizational clarifications regarding the use of cloud by the

public sector. The Danish Government welcomes further deliberations and

analyses of the issues.

Further initiatives to clarify rules on cloud services and the functioning of

a cloud marketplace are welcome. Also, there is a need for a more detailed

description of the proposed MoU on a cloud-federation, as it is presently

not clear what this initiative contains.

Cybersecurity

The Danish Government agrees that the new data paradigm that follows

from

the Commission’s data strategy brings new challenges for cyber se-

curity due to the decentralised nature of data storage and exchange. This

necessitates safe and secure use and handling of data at all levels and the

Danish Government would therefore suggest a particular focus on cyber

and information security skills as part of the overall effort to empower in-

dividuals and investing in digital skills for citizens and SME's.

Initiatives to improve availability and use of data should always meet rele-

vant cyber security standards and enable ethical and responsible handling

of data. It is a priority for the Danish Government that an ethical and re-

sponsible approach to data becomes a competitive advantage in Europe.

Data Portability and Trustworthy Data Use

The Danish Government sees the ambition to enhance citizens’ rights under

article 20 of the GDPR as an effort to deal with practical issues concerning

users’ current data portability rights, e.g. by demanding a standardised API

through which a user can give a third party data access.

From a Danish perspective, it is important that it is made clear that such a

right applies only to consent-based data sharing and, consequently, not the

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majority of the public sector’s data. There are sound reasons for not ex-

tending data portability to all public data without proper deliberations on

issues of data ethics.

In general, it is the position of the Danish Government that both content

and presentation of empowerment initiatives must take into account to what

extent such rights for individuals could and should be extended to data col-

lected by the public sector mandated by law. Such considerations might

need to build on a more explicitly defined concept of trustworthy data use

that is applicable to data collected through consent as well as data collected

through a legal mandate.

An open and proactive international approach

The Danish Government appreciates the efforts of the Commission to pur-

sue an EU approach to data availability and data use on a global scale. This

includes the proposal to allow open access to the European data spaces for

international participants adhering to EU legislation.

The Danish Government welcomes the Commission’s proposal to have an

open and proactive approach to international data flows as well as the focus

on addressing unjustified obstacles to digital trade. The Danish Govern-

ment continues to encourage the Commission to engage proactively to-

wards achieving ambitious rules on digital trade, especially in terms of

cross-border data

flows, both in EU’s trade agreements as well as in the

WTO. It is of vital importance for EU companies to harness the full poten-

tial of global value chains as well as expanding into new markets.

The Danish Government considers the area of data impact assessment to be

underdeveloped and supports the intention of the Commission to establish

a framework for measuring data flows and estimating their economic value.

The estimation of economic impact is also a central focal point in national

Danish initiatives such as the Basic Data Programme.

Concluding remarks

As a general remark, specific initiatives that are mentioned in the European

Strategy for Data are yet to be presented and it is not the intention of the

Danish Government to anticipate any of them.

As the European strategy for Data is based on the presupposed condition

that GDPR is complied with, it would be beneficial to cover some of the

difficulties that public and private actors, especially SME’s etc.,

experi-

ence. Furthermore, based on the experience of implementing the GDPR, it

should be noted that legislation imposing new and comprehensive require-

ments to both public and private actors, especially SME's should be accom-

panied by extensive and clear guidance. Otherwise, there is a risk that new

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initiatives will be counterproductive and reduce data use and thus harm in-

novation, growth and data-based progress.

Finally, it is important that initiatives mentioned in the data strategy are

aligned with and complement the work on the White Paper on Artificial

Intelligence also put forward by the Commission.