Europe can win global battle for commercial data, EU industry chief says
16 February, 2020
Europe may have lost the battle to create digital champions with the capacity of taking on US and Chinese companies harvesting personal data, nonetheless it can win the war of commercial data, Europe's industry policy chief said on Saturday (Feb 15).
Vast troves of data from how fast we drive our cars to just how much time a robot needs to turn out products in factories have yet to be fully exploited, said Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner responsible for the EU single market.
Alarmed by the dominance folks and Chinese tech companies such as Google, Amazon or Huawei, the EU is leaving behind the "laissez-faire" attitude of the first 2000s and ratcheting up regulatory pressure to safeguard its businesses.
The new approach will be on display on Wednesday when Breton unveils the bloc's new data and artificial intelligence strategy.
"We're entering a fresh phase. The battle for professional data starts now, and the primary battlefield will be Europe," Breton, a former French finance minister, told Reuters in an interview.
Breton said the EU had a distinctive opportunity to win the next thing of the digital revolution centred on the harvesting, management and analysis of data from professional fields such as for example factories, transport, energy and healthcare.
"Europe may be the world's top professional continent. AMERICA have lost much of their industrial know-how within the last phase of globalisation. They must little by little rebuild it. China has added-value handicaps it really is correcting," Breton said.
"But the bulk of the industrial value chain, from large groups to SMEs, is situated in Europe today. That is why all eyes are on Europe right now," he added.
"NOT NAIVE"
Breton, a former CEO of French IT giant Atos and telecoms group Orange, said the European Commission will unveil a three-pronged approach on Wednesday, consisting of strict rules, investing in infrastructure and unrolling a sector-specific approach.
Reuters exclusively reported on Jan 29 a 25-page draft document outlining the measures to make a single market in data, that could still be tweaked prior to the Feb 19 presentation.
It will include an array of new rules covering cross-border data use, data interoperability and standards related to manufacturing, climate change, the auto industry, healthcare, financial services, agriculture and energy.
Other rules in the coming months will start public data on geospatial, the surroundings, meteorology, statistics and corporate data over the bloc for companies to use for free.
The document also proposes scrapping competition rules which hinder data sharing and perhaps introducing rules to avoid large online platforms from unilaterally imposing conditions for access.
On Saturday, Breton insisted on the urgency of the task ahead. "Europe isn't naive, it can perfectly see what's happening. That's why we must organise ourselves now, including with regards to the deployment of the first 5G networks," he said.
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com