EU to consult on laws requiring the "free movement" of data

Bureaucrats consider 'fair and reasonable' licensing obligations to encourage the sharing of machine-generated data

The European Union is considering a licensing regime for anonymised machine-generated data, requiring holders of the data to be required to sell it at a 'fair and reasonable' price.

The suggestion is one of many contained in an EU working paper on "Building a European Data Economy" that was published this week. The consultation will form the basis of plans to facilitate access to the growing volumes of data generated by "computer processes, applications or services, or by sensors processing information received from equipment, software or machinery, whether virtual or real".

The European Commission regards the retention and siloing of machine-generated data as a barrier for businesses and other organisations - especially government agencies - from extracting broader value from such data.

"A framework potentially based on certain key principles, such as fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, could be developed for data holders, such as manufacturers, service providers or other parties, to provide access to the data they hold against remuneration after anonymisation.

"Relevant legitimate interests, as well as the need to protect trade secrets, would need to be taken into account," it suggested.

It continued: "The consideration of different access regimes for different sectors and/or business models could also be envisaged in order to take into account the specificities of each industry. For instance, in some cases, open access to data (full or partial) could be the preferred choice both for firms and for society," it said.

Other options include developing new guidelines to provide incentives for businesses to share the non-personal or anonymised data they have and granting public bodies special rights of access to data where this is in the 'general interest', explained the Out-law.com legal website operated by law firm Pinsent Masons.

The paper makes clear that the European Commission wants to enable the "meaningful portability for non-personal data", subject to compliance with the forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which itself also incorporates some data-portability obligations.

The Commission plans to develop similar data portability rules for non-personal data to those in the GDPR that apply to personal data, Out-law.com suggested.

The Commission said it is also looking to determine whether existing EU product liability rules "remain appropriate for emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things and autonomous connected systems", and is running a separate consultation on the issue, open until 26 April.

READ: Computing's three-part analysis of the GDPR written by Pinsent Masons' consultant lawyer and data protection expert Kuan Hon.