Three Ways of Secure Data Reusability in Europe: German Research Data Centres, Finnish Findata and the French Secure Access Data Centre

Abstract

The importance of the data economy has been recognised by the European Commission (hereinafter: Commission); hence, since the release of the data strategy, a set of legislative initiatives has been launched. One of these is the Data Governance Act (hereinafter: DGA) which intends to persuade Member States to set up or strengthen their already existing data intermediaries. In order to understand the motivations of the Commission, this article presents its digital agenda alongside the measures implemented to enhance the reuse of data. The article then provides an assessment of three data sharing services which are highlighted in the DGA’s impact assessment. These intermediaries are the German Research Data Centres (Forschungsdatenzentrum), the Finnish Findata and the French Secure Access Data Centre (Centre d’accès sécurisé aux données). The article introduces the main characteristics and modus operandi of these bodies and finally provides a comparison of them. The comparison identifies the focal points these bodies face, such as non-profit objectives, the legal background and accessibility and security issues. As a conclusion, it seems that the main structure and principles underlying their functioning of these bodies are rather similar.