Trustworthy Data Spaces: A Dialogue Between North and South – WTO Public Forum 2022

Although data is non-rivalrous, data controllers have the capacity to restrict access to data for a myriad of reasons, such as protecting privacy, intellectual property, or to maintain a competitive edge. At present, there are insufficient incentives for data to be shared by data controllers, and insufficient obligations for them to fulfil the social value of data. This session will address data sharing and data flows from national and international perspectives. It aims to establish a bridge between proposals advanced by actors in the Global North and in the Global South, such as Switzerland’s proposal of trustworthy data spaces, Japan’s proposal of data free flows with trust and India’s notion of community data. The discussion will discuss how these different proposals could contribute to promoting a more equal distribution of benefits in the data economy and to shed light on current negotiations on data flows taking place at the WTO.

This event, which is part of the WTO’s Public Forum 2022, is being organised by Diplo, the Swiss Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM), and the Geneva Internet Platform.