The European Parliament adopted a resolution on ‘Towards a thriving data-driven economy’, tabled by the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.
The growth rate in the Big Data market until 2017 will be six times faster than in the overall ICT market and will reach an overall total of EUR 50 billion, according to the International Data Corporation’s Worldwide Big Data Technology and Services Forecast for 2013-2017, which may result in 3.75 million new jobs by 2017. The volume of data is growing at an unprecedented pace, so that there will be 16 trillion gigabytes of data by 2020, which corresponds to an annual growth rate of 236% in data generation.
To meet this challenge, Parliament made the following recommendations:
The role of the data-driven economy within the Digital Union strategy: Members considered that the creation of a data-driven economy as being at the core of the Digital Single Market strategy, and appreciated its potential to help Europe regain competitiveness in advanced sectors, only if there is the right business environment and the means to activate the digital transformation put in place and that these technologies comply with the EU legal framework on data protection.
Parliament considered it essential to develop a regulatory framework to tackle the economic, technological, social and cultural challenges of a data-driven economy, such as access to, and control and ownership of, data, in particular public data. It stressed that finding a synergy between Big Data, data protection, data security and open data is the basis for a new digital start in Europe. It urged, in this connection, the swift adoption of the data protection package.
Investing in infrastructure and R&D: Parliament pointed out that a data-driven economy requires enormous investments in cloud development, super-computing and high-speed broadband, which are also prerequisites for a successful digital economy. It called for a better regulatory framework and environment that target both the private and public sectors.
The Commission and the Member Stated are encouraged to stimulate investments in network infrastructure through a positive regulatory framework and to continue to support broadband infrastructure through existing programmes such as the Connecting Europe Facility, the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) and the Cohesion Fund, but only in areas with identified market failures.
The resolution recognised the Commission’s initiatives to create public-private partnerships (PPPs) are crucial for identifying barriers to the development of the necessary technologies. It called for closer partnerships to be established between businesses and universities and research centres in order to foster Big Data innovation.
Members also called on the Commission to adopt policies that remove excessive barriers in innovative sectors, to incentivise investments in research and development and European standardisation and to address the current problem of infringements of standard-essential patents.
Creating a data-driven economy for the EU market: Parliament stressed that the fragmented single market is undermining the development of a data-driven economy, Big Data, cloud computing, the IoT and other data-driven technologies. The resolution stressed that the major technological impediments to the development of a data-driven economy include the lack of interoperability and of a common interface framework to facilitate sensor and machine data communication and communication between the virtual and physical world, the insufficient availability of open data and the lack of market conditions enabling entrepreneurs to innovate and grow. The Commission is asked to spur shared research to address these issues.
Members called for a future-proof regulatory environment that adapts to the changing nature of the sector, is technology-neutral, encourages the creation of start-ups and the entry into the market of new operators, creates a level playing field and fair competition while avoiding excessive regulatory burden, and ensures full compliance with data protection and privacy standards.
Parliament stated that more effort is needed with regard to the anonymisation and pseudonymisation of data as a precondition for creative data innovation.
Fostering start-ups and SMEs: recalling that only 1.7% of companies make full use of advanced digital technologies, Parliament called on the Commission and the Member States to:
Members asked that initiatives be launched, and funding models recommended, which foster lifelong learning and tailored measures for all, including elderly people, and which facilitate access to education to enable professionals to widen their ICT and data processing skills.
Involving society: Parliament called for the stimulation of initiatives to increase awareness of, and encourage public debate in Member States and at European and international level on, the benefits and value of digital technologies, particularly in relation to those groups that do not yet have access to digital technologies or are not very familiar with them. It recognises, in particular, the value of the Internet of Things (IoT), and called on the Commission and the Member States to speed up actions to develop e-governance.