DATA SHARING WITHIN THE EU: REFLECTIONS AND PERSPECTIVES

Secure sharing of data and information by individuals and economic operators has been of particular interest to the EU for years. It is prerequisite for redefining the role of the EU in today‘s digital economy. In this framework, the EU Commission has recently adopted two new proposals for regulations to strengthen technological competition and promote the establishment of a new Single Market for data. These are the Data Governance Act and the Data Act, pillars of a complex strategy called Shaping Europe‘s digital future, intended to optimise information value. This is also a way to encourage data circulation through a network of qualified intermediaries and provide safeguards to enable secure sharing within a supervised market. The collection, sharing and re-use of data, as regulated in these proposals, could be a pivotal momentum for concretely regulating the circulation of data among EU countries and promoting innovation and research, factors of primary importance in the Digital Age

The use of personal data has become one of the most sensitive issues in terms of protection of fundamental freedoms and democratic organisation of the State. This paper will reconstruct the most recent rulings on the subject, which have developed along at least two lines. The first line is aimed at the protection of European citizens' data with respect to processing by companies (both through the censorship of those national systems that do not offer an adequate level of protection, and with respect to companies whose non-EU destination systems do not offer guarantees equivalent to those of the Community system). A second line, on the other hand, is addressed to the protection of the citizen with respect to national instruments of data control for purposes of security and public order. The aim is to analyse the effectiveness of the protection offered by the European Union in this matter in relation to the autonomy profiles, although preserved by the individual member states.

Since there are not enough digitalisation initiatives dedicated to interoperability, the EU institutions believe that databases should communicate with each other in an automated way. Specifically, the European Union‘s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice would require specific attention, with a focus on the investigation of organised crime and terrorism. This issue is part of the EU Strategy to tackle Organised Crime 2021-2025 and of Regulations (EU) 2019/817-818 that establish the interoperability framework even in the field of judicial and police cooperation between national (e.g. State Police) and European (e.g. Europol) authorities concerning the sharing of data and information. The implementation of European legislation requires an analysis of the relationship between powers of the State – considering our national Legal System and its constitutional profiles – and increases the need for in-depth analysis of the theoretical profiles, framed within a multilevel system.

The managers of digital platforms, the Internet Service Providers, are real intermediaries between the information and data possessors, who intend to disclose them, and the recipients, thus fulfilling the main IT functions of supporting and developing electronic transactions. In view of their emerging role, and in order to protect the intangible assets exchanged and the third parties involved, specific legislation has been drawn up to regulate the liability regime to which ISPs are subject. European and national legislators have already intervened to regulate the issue hosting providers liability on digital platforms, which has been the subject of Judges of the European Court of Human Rights, the Court of Justice of the European Union, and national judges decisions. The debate on the adoption of one of the three liability models developed, differing in whether or not ISPs exercise powers of manipulation and surveillance of data posted by third parties on the platforms, is still open.