Landmark legislation to standardise data-sharing rules within the EU cleared the European Parliament March 14th, despite concerns about espionage and the protection of intellectual property.
The unimaginatively titled Data Act creates a harmonised EU regulatory framework and defines the terms of engagement for how both the private and public sectors can use data.
It forms part of a broader EU legislative agenda around data regulation, with the EU wishing to become a regulatory leader similar to how the bloc was able to set global standards with the passing of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Previous pieces of EU data legislation have been condemned for including hate speech clauses to regulate Big Tech platforms.
The Data Act passed overwhelmingly by 500 votes to 23. Proponents of the Act claim it frees up the use of data for positive social and economic ends while inserting safeguards around trade secrets and privacy.
The Act clarifies the ground rules around data sharing and formalises the regulatory relationship between the consumer, businesses, and governments in the hopes of creating a unified “single market for data.”
Under the terms of the Act, consumers will have the right to access how their data is shared and used with rules for how businesses can use user-generated data from their products or services. The scope of the Act includes both personal and non-personal data and defines when data counts as commercial or personal information.
Non-EU countries will also be barred from accessing European data through cloud services. The EU has been in a long-running dispute with the United States regarding transferring social media data. Industry experts have voiced concerns about Chinese espionage as the European Commission instructed staff to remove the app TikTok from their phones.
Critics of the Act describe a risk to intellectual property due to the easy flow of industry data as well as the potential for the EU to suffocate innovation by adding a new regulatory burden onto fledgling industries.
Despite broad support in the parliament, some MEPs from the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) voiced concerns about privacy risks and feared that the EU had arrived too late to regulate the data economy.
Dr. Norman Lewis, a research fellow with MCC Brussels, is critical of the Act and views it as part of an EU tendency to regulate innovation out of existence. “Referees cannot win matches,” Dr. Lewis intoned as he cited a general EU-wide problem with not being able to harness the digital revolution despite an abundance of talent.
In Dr. Lewis’s eyes, the EU is attempting to muscle its way into becoming a global regulatory leader in data management and impose its values on the world—a dangerous prospect, considering the bloc’s hostility to free speech evident in similar pieces of legislation such as the Digital Services Act. Dr. Lewis adds that the EU Commission, which largely designs legislation such as the Data Act, is virtually unaccountable, compared to the Big Tech firms which are at least subject to market forces.
The Data Act will now proceed to the European Council, where it will undergo further debate on March 28th.
The EU’s legislative priorities for this year, including its strategy for digital transition, will be explored in detail at The European Conservative’s upcoming event, “Europe: A Path Forward?”, held in Brussels at the Silversquare working space, 11 a.m. on March 22nd. It is open to the public, with registration required.
