On Wednesday, the Commission published a raft of new data-related proposals, including draft new laws to improve access and the reusability of public sector information, to planned guidance for businesses on sharing anonymous, machine-generated data, and further plans to use data to deliver more personalised health care.
The Commission said that the value of the European data economy could reach €739 billion by 2020 "if favourable policy and legislative conditions are put in place in time and investments in ICT are encouraged", up from €300bn in 2016.
"Data-driven innovation is a key enabler of market growth, job creation, particularly for SMEs and startups, and the development of new technologies," the Commission said. "It allows citizens to easily access and manage their health data, and allows public authorities to use data better in research, prevention and health system reforms."
Included in the Commission's measures are plans to update the existing EU directive on the re-use of public sector information (PSI). The directive contains measures aimed at freeing up information held by public sector bodies for re-use.
The revised proposal on PSI includes plans to extend re-use of PSI obligations to public undertakings in the transport and utilities sector, and to open access to research data resulting from publicly funded research. The proposal also envisages the use of application programming interfaces (APIs) by public bodies to "make dynamic data available in a timely manner" – the Commission said that "for a limited number of fundamental high-value datasets", the use of APIs for this purpose will be mandated.
"Providing access to dynamic data via application programming interfaces is particularly important, as it supports the open data ecosystem, saves time and costs through automation of the download process, and greatly facilitates the re-use of data for a wide range of new products and services," the Commission said.
"Currently the use of application programming interfaces by public sector bodies is insufficient, and many documents are still made available as PDFs. This results in a suboptimal use of dynamic data from the public sector for the creation of value-added services. The proposed changes in the directive on the re-use of public sector information aim to speed up the move of public sector bodies across Europe towards web-based functionalities and towards more wide-spread publication of dynamic data and the use of application programming interfaces," it said.
According to the new proposal, public sector bodies would be explicitly prohibited from relying on database rights to prohibit re-use of the content of information they hold.
In a new EU communication, the Commission also outlined plans to review and revise an existing EU recommendation on access to and preservation of scientific information. There is a need to "future-proof" the existing recommendation, which is "built on the premise that scientific information resulting from public funding should be accessible and re-usable with as few restrictions as possible", it said.
The Commission further issued new principles to guide the sharing of non-personal machine-generated data in a business-to-business context.
It said there should be transparency in contracts around data sharing arrangements, including on the type of data shared and purpose of its use. The contracts should also reflect the "shared value creation" where data is generated as a by-product of using a product or service, and should also "address the need to protect both the commercial interests and secrets of data holders and data users" it said.
Business contracts should also "ensure undistorted competition when exchanging commercially sensitive data" and businesses offering a product or service that generates data as a by-product should "allow and enable data portability as much as possible", the Commission said.
Further principles were also set out in the Commission's communication to encourage businesses to supply data they hold to public sector bodies "under preferential conditions for re-use".
A separate Commission communication on enabling the digital transformation of health and care in the EU's digital single market contained plans to make electronic health record systems interoperable across the EU.
To support this, a new European electronic health record exchange format, based on open standards, should be developed and adopted, it said.
"Citizens should have secure access, anywhere in the EU, to a comprehensive electronic record of their health data," the communication said. "Citizens should remain in control of and be able to share their health data securely with authorised parties (for medical treatment, preventive services, research or for any other purpose they deem appropriate). This should be irrespective of where the data is located and in line with data protection legislation. Unauthorised access should be prevented."
"Market fragmentation and lack of interoperability across health systems stand in the way of an integrated approach to disease prevention, care and cure better geared to people's needs," it said.
Additional plans to pool data resources and infrastructure from across the EU to support research to deliver more personalised health care were also outlined in the Commission's proposals.
Plans to create a new European database of more than one million sequenced human genomes were recently outlined by 13 EU countries.
At the time, expert in life sciences Helen Cline of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said: "Any consensus across Europe on the technical issues and safeguards needed to facilitate data sharing while at the same time minimising the risks to individuals of identification is to be welcomed. The initiative has the potential to build the trust and confidence needed to get the support and collaboration of medical professionals and patients. However, work is also needed to ensure there is greater public understanding of why data sharing matters."