The European Commission announced, on 25 November 2020, that it had presented a new regulation on data governance. In particular, the Commission outlined that the regulation will facilitate data sharing across the EU and between sectors to create wealth for society, increase control and trust of both citizens and companies regarding their data, and offer an alternative European model to data handling practice of major tech platforms. In addition, the Commission highlighted that the regulation will create the basis for a new European way of data governance that is in line with EU values and principles, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) ('GDPR'), consumer protection, and competition rules.

Moreover, the Commission noted that the new regulation proposes a model based on the neutrality and transparency of data intermediaries, which are organisers of data sharing or pooling, aimed to increase trust, specifying that data-sharing intermediaries will not be able to deal in the data on their own account, such as by selling it to another company or using it to develop their own product, and will have to comply with strict requirements. Furthermore, the Commission stated that the new regulation will include, among other things, a number of measures to increase trust in data sharing, measures to facilitate the re-use of certain data held by the public sector, and means to give Europeans control over the use of the data they generate, by making it easier and safer for companies and individuals to voluntarily make their data available for the wider common good, under clear conditions.

You can read the press release here, Q&As on the regulation here, and download the draft regulation here.