DEFINITION - A COMMON EUROPEAN DATA SPACE
Data spaces are decentralised infrastructures, where diverse actors can share and use data in a secure, reliable and trustworthy manner, following common governance, organisational, regulatory and technical mechanisms. They will interconnect various data ecosystems in a demand-driven process, which is key to achieving data exchange across societal actors.
The term ‘common European data space’ is defined by the European strategy for data as ‘a genuine single market for data – open to data from across the world – where personal and non-personal data, including sensitive business data, are secure and businesses have easy access to high-quality industrial data, boosting growth and creating value’.
It emphasises that horizontal actions towards a European data space need to be accompanied by the development of sectoral or domain-specific data spaces in strategic areas such as manufacturing, agriculture, health and mobility.
STATE OF PLAY - EUROPEAN DATA SPACE
In February 2022, the Commission, at the request of the EU Council, published a Staff Working Document (SWD) providing an overview of the state of play of the ten common European data spaces initially listed in the European Strategy for Data, together with several additional ones. It describes these data spaces as “bringing together relevant data infrastructures and governance frameworks in order to facilitate data pooling and sharing”.
According to this SWD, common European data spaces should include inter alia:
- i) the deployment of data-sharing tools and services for the pooling, processing and sharing of data by an open number of organisations, as well as federated energy-efficient and trustworthy cloud capacities and related services;
(ii) data governance structures, compatible with relevant EU legislation, which determine, in a transparent and fair way, the rights concerning access to and processing of data;
(iii) an improved availability, quality and interoperability of data, both in domain-specific settings and across sectors.
STANDARDISATION - CONNECTING THE DATA SPACE DOTS
From these descriptions above, we can state that common European data spaces aim to overcome legal, organisational, semantic and technical barriers to data sharing between diverse actors by combining the necessary tools and infrastructures, and by way of common rules and standards, always in compliance with the applicable laws.
A recent Digital Europe call for proposals refers to a data space as “data infrastructure with tailored governance mechanisms that will enable secure and cross-border access to key datasets in the targeted thematic area”. Similarly, the Data Spaces Support Centre explains a data space as a “Decentralised, governed and standard-based structure to enable trustworthy data sharing between the data space participants on a voluntary basis”.
Common European data spaces will thus connect currently fragmented and dispersed data from various ecosystems in order to support EU priorities, create new business opportunities and facilitate the use of data for innovation. They will offer an interoperable, trusted information technology (IT) environment for data processing, and a set of rules of a legislative, administrative and contractual nature that determine the rights of access to and use of data. They will thus enable data reuse and secondary use within and across sectors, fully respecting EU values and contributing to European economic and social development. It is also important to mention that in various policy documents the term “data space” is sometimes used alongside terms such as a “data ecosystem”, a “data framework” and a “data infrastructure” as a way of describing European data sharing practices.
Suggested Section: Principles of data spaces
Understand what are the Principles, characteristics and sector specific data spaces
Disclaimer: The views expressed are purely those of the authors and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission. views expressed are purely those of the authors and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission.