Background information

With the growing volume of data comes an increasing need for secure exchange and processing. In both the private and public sectors, data exchange has become an unavoidable part of an organization’s efficient and customer-centric operations. Nevertheless, there are numerous challenges in the current situation that hinder the valorization of data, both within the public sector and in exchanges between the public and private sectors, as well as within the private sector itself. Currently, a significant portion of the data generated by public and private sector organizations is either not used at all or only used internally. At the same time, there is substantial potential value in the growing data streams, both in terms of data sales and the development of new products and services through data sharing, as well as in data-driven decisions, i.e., data reuse and valorization.

As companies and public sector organizations carry out their activities, more and more data is generated, including through the Internet of Things (IoT). Although data flows are increasing by gigabytes and terabytes every day, most organizations lack efficient methods to utilize this potentially new value, to profit from it, and to use it strategically. Meanwhile, this data can be useful to other companies and sectors, as well as to public sector institutions, both for adding higher added value to their existing activities and for creating new products and services.

In an increasingly data-driven society, it is therefore necessary to ensure the infrastructure and tools that enable secure data exchange and processing, while protecting data from cyber threats. It is important to ensure that individuals have the ability to decide on the use of their own data and to ensure transparency in data processing. Emerging technologies, such as post-quantum cryptography, privacy-enhancing technologies (PET), and the Internet of Things (IoT), along with international initiatives like data spaces and data vaults, can play a significant role in the valorization of data in both the private and public sectors.

The rapid growth of data volumes creates a need for a new generation of data infrastructure, where data can be transparently bought, sold, shared, and processed. This data infrastructure may include a data marketplace where data can be bought and sold (direct economic benefit through data sales by primary, secondary, and tertiary parties), sectoral data spaces where industry-specific data can be exchanged and securely processed (e.g., car repair companies sharing information about the most common faults and solutions, or situations where data from one company is insufficient for developing a solution, such as training industry-specific machine translation models), consent-based data exchange (e.g., sharing health data based on consent to receive services), the application of privacy-enhancing technologies (e.g., creating synthetic data to enable the reuse of sensitive data), as well as improving access to open data.