New EU Proposal Aims To Offer Data Protections From China & US

The European Union is laying out new standards for data, giving Europeans more control over their personal information as it seeks to counter the power of US and Chinese tech companies, reported The Wall Street Journal.

The EU’s executive Commission on Wednesday, November 25, proposed new rules on the handling of data that would aim to give people, businesses, and government bodies the confidence to share their information in a European data market.

The proposed legislation would spell out how industrial and government data – normally off limits because of intellectual property rights, commercial confidentiality, or privacy rights – could be shared to help society or boost the economy. The bloc’s strict privacy rules would still apply, with mechanisms in place to preserve confidentiality or anonymity.

The aim is to drive innovation in areas such as health care or climate change by allowing data to be more easily shared with companies or researchers.

The proposal, known as the Digital Governance Act, calls for raising trust in data sharing by setting up a new system involving neutral and trustworthy middlemen who act as brokers of pools of data.

Europeans would be able to get more control of their data through “personal data spaces” that have tools and services that let them decide who can access their data and for what purpose.

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