A Canadian Perspective On The EU's Proposed Data Governance Act

In February 2020, the European Commission (EC) published a Communication titled the European strategy for data where it outlined policy measures designed to create a single market for data in the European Union (EU) that would strengthen the EU's global competitiveness and data sovereignty. The strategy identified factors threatening to inhibit the development of the EU's data economy, namely regulatory fragmentation between Member States and the insufficient availability of data for innovative re-use, including for the development of artificial intelligence.¹ Against this backdrop, in November 2020, the EC published a proposed Data Governance Act (DGA) which aims to foster a harmonized data ecosystem across Member States that facilitates and incentivizes voluntary data sharing by businesses, governments, and individuals. Following the conclusion of negotiations between the European Parliament and the European Council, the latest version of the DGA released in