The Member States’ ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) agreed on a common position on Friday 1 October to start negotiations with the European Parliament on the proposed Data Governance Act (DGA) (see EUROPE 12800/8).
“It is crucial to increase trust in data sharing. This law will not oblige anyone to share their data, but for those who want to make their data available for certain purposes, it creates a safe and easy way to do it and to stay in control”, said Slovenian Minister of Public Administration Boštjan Koritnik.
The EU Council’s approach is based, in addition to greater flexibility to take account of national specificities already existing in some Member States (see EUROPE 12786/6), on intermediation and data altruism.
In the area of intermediation, the EU Council advocates the establishment of a register of services active in this field. These intermediation service providers, in the form of digital platforms, would make it possible to provide guarantees and develop trust in the sharing of personal data between consumers and businesses.
With regard to data altruism, which consists in voluntarily making data available for the common good, the EU Council considers in particular that the entities responsible for collecting the data could apply to be listed - and thus recognised - in national registers.
On this point, the EU Council also added compliance with a code of conduct as a condition for registration. This should be developed by altruism organisations and stakeholders.
Finally, the EU Council supports the idea of creating a new structure - the European Data Council - to assist the Commission in improving the interoperability of intermediation services.
See the EU Council negotiation mandate: https://bit.ly/2XW3zyK (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)