WASHINGTON– May 3 2024 – The Global Data Alliance published recommendations today in support of the launch of the “Data Free Flow with Trust” (DFFT) Expert Community at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The GDA recommends:
- Improving transparency on cross-border data measures as a first step improving the attainment of legitimate cybersecurity, data security, privacy, or other goals, without allowing for the propagation of improper cross-border data restrictions that are arbitrary, disguised, discriminatory, or unnecessary.
- Developing a legal repository of country’s national legal frameworks that broadly implement the OECD Declaration on Government Access to Personal Data Held by Private Sector Entities, with a view to promoting democratic norms of procedural fairness and accountability in connection with their access to personal data held by the private sector.
- Assessing case studies of restrictive data transfer policies in particular sectors – allowing for more precise comparisons of the cross-border data policies in different sectors across economies, including automotive, finance, health, telecommunications, and other areas.
- Undertaking a literature review of recent studies published by the OECD, universities, think tanks, private economists, or other international organizations (such as the WTO, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, etc.). This work could also summarize regional, sectoral, and substantive trends, and might also include a discussion of how to slow or reverse the threat of increasing cross-border data restrictiveness.
“We welcome the establishment of a DFFT Expert Community to explore new approaches to reduce cross-border data restrictiveness and promote interoperability among international digital regulatory frameworks,” said Joseph Whitlock, Executive Director at the Global Data Alliance. “We thank the OECD for its generosity in hosting this important forum and the OECD Secretariat for lending their valuable expertise and knowledge to it. We particularly thank the Government of Japan for its steadfast and continuous support for the cross-border exchange of knowledge, ideas, and information based on the original vision of “Data Free Flows with Trust” that Japan outlined in 2019.”
The DFFT initiative holds significant promise for: (1) growing our collective understanding of cross-border data policy restrictions; (2) better quantifying their costs and impacts from a social, environmental, health, safety, security, and economic perspective; (3) pointing the way towards greater regulatory interoperability among different frameworks; and (4) agreeing to refrain from imposing data localization mandates, cross-border data barriers, or other such data flow impediments on grounds that are arbitrary, disguised, discriminatory, or unnecessary.