As 2019 came to a close, we
looked ahead into 2020 and noted that data would continue to be
a huge issue for the digital economy. We have not been
disappointed. On February 19, 2020, the European Commission (the
"Commission") released its 35-page document entitled
"A European strategy for data," becoming
just the latest of many developments in that area.
The document lays out a vision as to how – through
legislation, technical standards and public-private initiatives
– the EU can become a future leader in data and create a more
permissive data economy.
The Commission's goal is to create a single European data
space – "a genuine single market for data, open to data
from across the world – where personal as well as
non-personal data, including sensitive business data, are secure
and businesses also have easy access to an almost infinite amount
of high-quality industrial data, boosting growth and creating
value, while minimising the human carbon and
