Industry Discussion on Data Access in the EU

EACA attended today´s Mozilla Morning event on ‘The Future and Openness of Data Access’. Guest speakers comprised of the following industry experts; Christian D’Cunha, Head of Private Office EDPS, Agustín Reyna, Head of Legal and Economic Affairs BEUC, the European Consumer Organisation, Benjamin Ledwon, Head of Brussels Office, Bitkom and Maud Sacquet, Public Policy Manager at Mozilla Corporation.

The event opened with panellists discussing the complexities involved with categorising different types of data before moving on to analysing how the GDPR has provided an insurance against the sharing of personal data. Mr. Reyna pointed out how Europe has created a balance, through the GDPR, of innovation and the protection of personal data. In turn, the discussion highlighted the obstacles facing the sharing of non-personal data amongst companies. As a potential solution, Mr. Ledwon, suggested Europe could utilise competition law in order to address this issue.

Furthering their discussion on the sharing of non-personal data, questions were asked if sharing of data was even the correct solution to the problems facing Europe today. Ms. Sacquet argued that sharing data could potentially turn into a huge data dump. Furthermore, Mr. D’Cunha, maintained that by creating a competitive environment this would subsequently create a race to the top concerning consumer privacy.

Finally, Mr. D’Cunha introduced the topic of sustainability and data citing a strong relationship between the two. Mr. D´Cunha advocated for companies to use less data for more, as it is unsustainable to gather, process and hold large volumes of data, as is currently the case for some platforms today.

EACA would like to thank the organisers for providing an insightful discussion of data access, sovereignty and sustainability in Europe!