The Finnish Presidency of the Council of the EU will organise a high-level conference on data economy in Helsinki from 25 to 26 November. This event will result in the publication of horizontal principles, which will in turn feed into the work of the December European Council.
In a document intended to prepare the candidate Commissioners for their hearings, the Commission services acknowledge that they have received multiple requests to regulate data set areas “which are fundamental to feed and improve artificial intelligence algorithms”. "Artificial intelligence in the fields of health, transport or finance needs data sets that work well", notes DG CONNECT (see EUROPE 12352/7).
For its part, the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU has also chosen to identify the data economy as one of its strategic areas of intervention. Since September, it has maintained a website for stakeholders on which it identifies a set of key principles for a human-centric, thriving and balanced data economy (https://dataprinciples2019.fi/ ).
Six “default” principles
The Finnish approach is as follows: human empowerment is needed to enable data transfer, personal services based on data, more informed decisions and more meaningful interactions. With regard to the successful data economy, the Presidency stresses the need to encourage the decentralisation of data rather than concentration. “It should also be possible to access private sector data, provided that this does not compromise privacy, property protection or secrecy. Data must be identifiable, accessible, interoperable and reusable”, the Presidency notes. It should be recalled that the new directive 2019/1024 on the re-use of public sector information excludes private companies from its scope (see EUROPE 12178/7). With regard to the balanced data economy, Helsinki calls for more reciprocity between actors and between sectors. “Instead of exclusive rights and ownership, explicit rights to use the data must be established to promote data sharing”.
The Presidency invites stakeholders to prioritise, comment on and assess the feasibility of six guiding principles: access, reuse, human, reciprocity, ethical sustainability and adaptability.
As indicated on its website, this feedback will help the Presidency to draft conclusions and recommendations on data economy for the European Council on 12 and 13 December. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)