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The View | A World Data Organisation needed to avoid rules-based disorder
- The politicisation and divergence of data governance regimes threaten to create a spaghetti bowl of incompatible systems that reduces trade, slows productivity and stifles innovation
- The world needs a ‘Bretton Woods for data’ to pave the way for an institution to set rules on data governance and create a workable framework to govern digital matters and disputes
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At a time when the economic outlook is bleak, the digital economy is a rare bright spot for global growth prospects. It now accounts for 15.5 per cent of global gross domestic product. Over the next decade, it is expected that 70 per cent of new value created in the economy will be based on digitally enabled platform business models.
Monthly global data traffic soared during the pandemic and is forecast to reach 780 exabytes by 2026, up more than three-fold compared to 2020. Meanwhile, an estimated half a million new users connect to the internet each day.
Open data flows are the lifeblood of the digital economy. However, they are now under threat from a proliferation of laws restricting data transfer across borders.
By July 2021, the number of countries with rules on data localisation had risen to 62 from 35 in 2017, while the total number of measures in force had more than doubled to 144. Many more countries, such as India and Vietnam, are on the cusp of adopting sweeping new data protection legislation.
The European Union is moving towards a new law that will apply to all data generated there, building on the General Data Protection Regulation, which applies to personal data. China is currently drafting more regulations on the handling of data after new laws on data security and privacy came into force last year.
The US has been slower to act but is also moving towards stricter rules on data through state legislation and executive orders.
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