Members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy adopted (66 votes in favour, none against, 6 abstentions) on Friday 16 July a report aimed at facilitating the exchange and sharing of data in the EU, in the framework of European data governance (DGA).
“The aim of my report was to make data sharing easier, not harder, especially for SMEs. There is enormous potential for growth and innovation in a functioning data economy. The DGA will help kick-start this development”, said rapporteur Angelika Niebler (EPP, Germany).
In concrete terms, this text clarifies the scope of the DGA by basing it on the provision of the service rather than on a company’s main activity, while the issue of data intermediaries—such as search engines or social networks—was at the heart of the debate.
“This would have excluded all of the companies that offer data intermediation services as a secondary activity”, summarised German Greens/EFA shadow rapporteur Damian Boeselager.
Similarly, the proposed blanket exclusion of cloud service providers has been removed from the Parliament’s position. “This aspect would have made it more or less impossible for new, independent data intermediation services to compete on a level playing field”, Mr Boeselager added.
The text adopted by MEPs also aims to ensure that the DGA will not interfere with—and undermine—the basis of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regarding data sharing.
“In the negotiation process, it was important for our group that there were no conflicts between the Data Governance Act and the GDPR. We must be careful not to jeopardise the rights of Europeans for which we have fought so hard over the past 2 years”, stressed shadow rapporteur Miapetra Kumpula-Natri (S&D, Finland).
Among other things, MEPs also advocate that public sector entities should not enter into any agreements that create exclusive rights to re-use data. These, MEPs propose, should be limited to a period of 12 months.
The transfer of sensitive public data to third countries will have to be subject to the condition that the data processing is in line with European standards and those of the country concerned. It will be up to the Commission to decide, via a delegated act, whether the level of protection in a third country is similar to European standards. Parliament states in its report that it should be entitled to give its opinion on these decisions.
MEPs also suggest that Member States should be able to impose penalties for infringements. (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)