Free Flow Of Data Research Articles

Understanding the evolution of China’s approach to digital trade: interests, ideas, and institutions

Amid economic globalisation and the rapid development of advanced technologies in recent years, the world economy has shown an increasing trend of digitalisation, whilst digital trade has become the primary pattern of international trade. Based on differences rooted in socio-political systems, as well as the current precarious geopolitical realities, governments adopt different ideas in accordance with their respective interests in the institutionalisation of digital trade. As the world’s second-largest economy and a major digital power, China’s behaviours and ideological stances attract scholarly attention and states’ concern. Whilst Western countries and scholars have criticised China’s ideas of “government intervention in data regulation” and “cyber sovereignty” applied in its existing approach to digital trade, warning that China’s approach poses a threat to Western powers’ adherence to liberalism in the international digital trade system and the idea of “free data flow” in their approaches to digital trade, there has been insufficient research into how China’s approach to digital trade has evolved over time and which ideas and interests have influenced it. To bridge this gap in the literature, this paper divides the evolution of China’s approach to digital trade over the past three decades (1993–2023) into three phases using a longitudinal approach. This research conducts qualitative content analysis using official documents, white papers, and declarations from official Chinese websites, then adopts the 3I analytical framework to analyse which ideas and interests have influenced China’s approach in each phase and how its approach to digital trade has evolved over time.

Governance in the Free Cross-border Flow of Data

Every part of life, work and friendship has been inseparable from the Internet. When we casually click on the links on the network, when we need to enter personal information on the network due to work and policy, when enterprises are used to storing most of the data in the emerging cloud computing service platform, when the official website of the core departments of the country was maliciously attacked. We are facing more frequent information leakage in the era of big data. Especially with the trend of multinational corporations, regional interoperability, and the integration of the world economy, data and information can flow across borders without obstacles. Undoubtedly, cross-border business trade, project co-operation, geo-location, and server tracking are necessary, but the large amount of data recording, flow, and tracking brings great risks to personal privacy, business secrets, and the maintenance and stability of national security. As a result of the growing awareness of the risks and drawbacks of cross-border data flows, jurisdictions and regions have developed legislation and rules to balance the free flow of data and cross-border security.

Legal imagination and the US project of globalising the free flow of data

Today, the US pursues the global capture of data (understood as a significant engine of growth) by way of bi- and plurilateral trade agreements. However, the project of securing the global free flow of data has been pursued ever since the dawn of digital telecommunication in the 1960s and the US has made significant legal efforts to institutionalise it. These efforts have two phases: In the first 1970s and 80s “freedom of information” phase, the legal justification (and contestation) of the global free flow of data hinged on imagining data as information, and its exchange as a practice of liberty. The second phase began in the late 1990s and continues today. In this phase, the free flow of data is aligned with a free-trade agenda in the context of first e-commerce and, starting in the 2000s, through attempts at creating a global public domain of personal data for the platform economy. The global free flow of data is an intrinsic aspect of informational capitalism. Assuming a constitutive, but not commanding role for law in informational capitalism, we conclude that the US attempt at ensuring free flow for its informational corporations is neither an entirely contingent nor a necessary outcome. It is a product of legal imagination.

中国数据可携权的赋权法理问题与完善进路

Under the background of digital economy, data, as a new factor of production, plays an extremely important role in resource allocation. The collection, storage and transfer of personal data are gradually normalized, and personal data has become an important resource for public management, social services and business competition. However, the problem also emerges. How to realize the free flow of data while protecting the rights of data subjects to their personal data, and create a win-win situation between the protection of personal data rights and the development of digital economy is a major problem facing the world. The emergence of the portability right of personal data undoubtedly provides ideas for the solution of this problem. In the exercise of this right, the data subject can independently control the flow of personal data among different data controllers, which has the dual effect of enhancing the self-determination right of the data subject and promoting the competition in the data market. At present, the European Union, some states of the United States, Brazil and other countries and regions are formulating laws to raise the right of data portable as a personal data right, and there are also relevant provisions in China's Personal Information Protection Law. As a response to the protection of personal information in the digital age, the right to data portability has a far-reaching significance in protecting the data control rights of users and the barrier-free data transmission. Major countries in the world are already building localized specific specifications for the right to carry personal data, and it will reach more countries and regions in the future. The right to carry personal data is not only related to personal interests, but also an important means to develop the digital economy and realize the marketization of data elements. Therefore, China should also timely build a specific system for the right to carry personal data with Chinese characteristics according to its national conditions. Based on the normative interpretation of China's Personal Information Protection Law, the practical needs of data subjects to realize the right of personal information, and the useful reference of the judicial practice of countries outside the region, the data portable right has further applicable legal logic. The portability of personal data is an extension of the rights and interests of personal information in the Civil Code of China. The establishment of this right can effectively strengthen the individuals' possession and effective control of data, which can not only enable individuals to gain personality independence in the digital economy, but also become a beneficiary of data contribution and reuse. The study of the right to data portability is conducive to improving the personal data protection system, and further clarifying the data ownership and transfer between individuals and enterprises, and between enterprises and enterprises. Unfortunately, there are still disputes between the property right and the personality right in the legal property of the current data portable right, and the fuzzy exercise rules and the confusion of the scope of application lead to its unsatisfactory effect. In view of the problems of the right to data portability, China build personal data carrying system can draw lessons from the European Union and other countries mode and system specification, but not copy, it is in the practice of carrying data at home and abroad and mode analysis and research under the premise of, conform to China's national conditions and the development status of the specific design. Firstly, the dual attribute of “property right + personality right” should be clarified. It not only fully reflects the personal characteristics and rights of the data subject, but also highlights the economic value created by the personal data for the data subject.

RCEP Basic Security Exceptions for Cross-Border Data Flows and China's Response

With the booming development of digital economy, the cross-border activities of data are becoming more and more frequent. At present, data has become an important national strategic resource in the information age. Rational data flow plays an important role in promoting economic growth, accelerating innovation and facilitating globalization. The current global cross-border data flow regulatory system is in a critical period of formation. In the context of the continuous improvement of the current rules system at the regional level, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), as an important regional free trade area agreement (FTA), has made new provisions on the cross-border flow of data, and the regional data flow rules represented by RCEP profoundly reflect that the rules of global cross-border data flow should not be completely dominated and formulated by developed economies, and all kinds of sovereign countries All kinds of sovereign countries should have the right to participate and the right to speak in the system. The regulation of global data cross-border flows in the digital economy is not only motivated by economic interests, but more importantly, by the protection of national interests. Therefore, under the current data governance system, China should use RCEP as an external driving force to revise and improve the relevant domestic rules on cross-border data flows, so as to promote the benign development of the data governance system, accelerate the promotion of the free flow of data across borders, strengthen cooperation with the international community, continuously expand the intersection of rules on cross-border data flows, achieve convergence of rules, and promote the Chinese solution for the governance of cross-border data flows.

Addressing the Challenges of Data Privacy Protection Law in Vietnam

The Internet has substantially changed human behaviors in the way of accessing and exchanging information – including personal data – easier and faster than ever. Frontier-less nature of the Internet not only enables the free flow of data across countries, but also brings new challenges including risks to privacy.
 Under the state surveillance, Vietnam has regulated differently privacy from the state and privacy from private actors. The utmost priority focused on regulating cyber activities that impact national security and social order and safety, which is reflected in Law on Cybersecurity No. 24/2018/QH14 on June 12, 2018.
 For personal data protection, the rules for the collection, storage, processing, use, disclosure, and publication of personal data are set out in Vietnam’s Civil Code 2015 and in multiple sectorial laws besides a general framework for data protection promulgated in Law on Network Information Security No. 86/2015/QH13 (Nov 19, 2015). However, these rules are drafted in broad language and are open to interpretation; however, there has been no repository for precedent till now.
 Recently, in order to enhance the best effort in protecting personal data, Vietnam updated its legislative agenda and planned to enact an initial decree on Personal Data Protection drafted by Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security after its first issuance in 2019. This updated draft has a more robust set of rules regulating specific rights of data subjects, cross-border transfer of data, and processing of sensitive personal data, which clarified mostly the longstanding speculation about the direction of Vietnam’s data protection regime beyond state surveillance.
 The objective of the present article is to point out the current status of the legal system in protecting personal data, its potential obstacles to effective protection of the right to data protection, and to put forward solutions for removing those obstacles with regard to data protection in Vietnam.

Возможно ли лидерство «Группы двадцати» по вопросам управления данными? Есть ли шанс на сближение подходов?

Data is an infinite resource, a new form of capital in the knowledge economy. In absence of data regulation, global technological corporations seek to expand their influence at each link in data chains and use their market power to build monopolies. Data can generate not only profits for tech giants but also social value; however, market forces by themselves will not create data-based public goods. For this, government actions are needed at the county level, and interstate and multilateral institutional cooperation is required at the international level. To date, despite numerous initiatives to establish coordination mechanisms and data regulation, cooperation on data governance is highly fragmented and gridlocked due to contradictions and tough competition between players. One of the key disagreements is related to the regulation of cross-border data flows. The article explores contradictions between the regulatory practices of the central actors in the digital economy, the U.S., the European Union (EU) and China in the first place, and the approaches they promote in international institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Group of G20 (G20), the Group of 7 (G7), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In particular, the authors look at the G20’s agenda on data governance and the initiative on free data flow with trust and consider its challenges and the risks of cooperation stagnation. The conclusion presents possible scenarios for future cooperation on data governance, their risks and perspectives, including the establishment of the Digital Economy and Data Governance Board by the G20, the G7’s initiative on shaping global digital order, deepening of cooperation on data governance within the G7 and the OECD, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) proposal on building a multilevel, distributed polycentric data-governance model with the UN playing a central role. The authors conclude with a proposal on cooperation within BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) aimed at shaping inclusive multilateral data governance.

Can data flow provisions facilitate trade in goods and services? —Analysis based on the TAPED database

Data is a basic production factor in the digital economy era, and it creates value in the processes of flow, sharing, and processing. However, there are different attitudes toward data flow, and less attention has been paid to the impact of data flow provisions on international trade. Based on the Trade Agreements Provisions on Electronic-commerce and Data (TAPED) database, we evaluate the impact of data flow provisions on trade in goods and services. Our results show that the signing of provisions on the free flow of data plays a more significant role in promoting trade in services. This finding is robust to a wide range of tests, including parallel trend test, lagging one period, and placebo tests. Mechanism analysis shows that signing provisions on the free flow of data can promote the growth of goods trade by breaking through distance restrictions. From the perspective of trade in services, the effect of signing data free flow provisions varies according to the degree of Internet access in the destination country. In addition, data flow provisions have heterogeneous effects on international trade at the national and industry levels.

Digital disruption: artificial intelligence and international trade policy

AbstractDigitalization of the global economy is occurring apace and has spurred a new wave of trade negotiations, as governments and technology firms vie to establish international rules and standards for the digital era. This article examines the ways that trade policy-makers are responding to artificial intelligence (AI), arguably the most disruptive of the new digital technologies. In a digitalized global economy, trade rules have implications for AI innovation, uptake, and governance, yet existing trade rules have significant shortcomings and need updating in order to assist with effective AI governance. Updating is happening but, so far, the changes focus on promoting AI and disproportionately reflect the interests of large technology firms, the major innovators and owners of AI. New digital trade rules include stringent intellectual property protections for source code and algorithms, and strong commitments to enable the free flow of data across borders. However, much less progress has been made in addressing cross-border risks and harms associated with AI, in areas such as competition policy; ethical, transparent, and accountable use of AI; personal data protection; and protections against the exploitative use of algorithms in consumer and labour markets.

European artificial intelligence policy as digital single market making

Rapid innovation in digital services relying on artificial intelligence (AI) challenges existing regulations across a wide array of policy fields. The European Union (EU) has pursued a position as global leader on ethical AI regulation in explicit contrast to US laissez-faire and Chinese state surveillance approaches. This article asks how the seemingly heterogeneous approaches of market making and ethical AI are woven together at a deeper level in EU regulation. Combining quantitative analysis of all official EU documents on AI with in-depth reading of key reports, communications, and legislative corpora, we demonstrate that single market integration constitutes a fundamental but overlooked engine and structuring principle of new AI regulation. Under the influence of this principle, removing barriers to competition and the free flow of data, on the one hand, and securing ethical and responsible AI, on the other hand, are seen as compatible and even mutually reinforcing.

Main directions of the EU digital policy at the current stage

This article will analyze an EU digital policy and its cooperation with other countries. As we can see today, digitalization has a huge impact on every sphere of people’s and state’s lives, and its closely intertwined with the policy-making of the EU. The European Union works with partners around the world to advance its values and interests in many areas, including the digital sphere. This shows how a European approach can help others manage digital transformation in areas such as free data flow, human-centered artificial intelligence (AI),5G, cybersecurity, privacy protection, data management etc. The path of digital space has been crossed by the process of European integration. In addition to being tied to information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the Union, «digital» is a keyword in the policies, speeches, and strategies of the European institutions that are tied to other categories of common policies of the Union, such as industry, the social dimension, research, or security. These indicators of the significance of digital policies in the Union include the fact that they are at the center of the public discourse in Europe and that they are horizontal, spanning multiple industries. The topic arises from the digitalization of the world and the EU is not trying to stay behind.

Data Governance Act: On International Transfers of Non-Personal Data and GDPR Mimesis

In accordance with the European strategy for data, the European Union (EU) aims to enhance the free flow of data and increase trust in data sharing mechanisms within the internal market. This ambition, however, contrasts with the EU’s more ‘protective’ approach to the governance of cross-border data flows. The high standard of data protection in the EU has resulted in a number of restrictions on transfers of personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA). This article explores whether and to what extent the data protection rationale impacts EU law-making on international transfers of protected non-personal data. To do so it establishes divergences and convergences between the legal design of cross-border data transfers under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Governance Act (DGA). It also critically engages with the phenomenon of GDPR mimesis, according to which new EU regulatory initiatives for technology and digital life imitate the regulatory system established by the GDPR. This article argues that EU rules on non-personal data transfers have some similarities with the GDPR international data transfers regime but that the resemblance should not be overstated. The article critically assesses GDPR mimesis as a new regulatory phenomenon and, paradoxically, provides reasons why it has benefits. Keywords: General Data Protection Regulation | Data Governance Act | GDPR Mimesis | Non-Personal Data Transfers

2023: Year of Re‐Debut

2023: Year of Re‐Debut

Testing Restrictions on Onward Transfers of EU Personal Data Against Free Data Flow Obligations in the CPTPP and US-Japan Digital Trade Agreement

Testing Restrictions on Onward Transfers of EU Personal Data Against Free Data Flow Obligations in the CPTPP and US-Japan Digital Trade Agreement

Depersonalized data: the Russian approach in light of global practices

Data is an important business asset that can be valued and shared for different business purposes. Data about users of services, social platforms, marketplaces, and smart devices owners is used for a variety of purposes: analytics and service improvement, hypothesis testing, and new product development, partnerships, profiling and personalized advertising, machine learning, and the development of new technologies such as IoT. Data is not only used in the usual context of IT giants, but also in such economic sectors as agriculture and industry.1 The amount of data being produced is growing exponentially.2 The commercial turnover of information is expected to grow to an estimated $549 billion by 2028 for the Big Data market alone.3 At the same time, the use of data concerning a natural person falls under the human rights regime aiming to protect the fundamental right to privacy. That is why the data protection regulations historically attempted to reconcile the competing values of the free flow of data and individual’s privacy.4 Nowadays, the pervasive use of large volumes of information which include personal data makes this an even harder endeavour and creates new challenges for data protection legislation, since it is necessary to foster innovation based on the data economy and at the same time face the increasing threats to the privacy of individuals. In theory, de-identification5 which dilutes the link between data and individual can successfully reconcile these goals. For this reason, the processing of depersonalized data justly deserves more freedom than the processing of personal data. Depersonalization has become a widespread practice and in many cases is subject to regulation. However, there is an inverse relationship between the degree of data depersonalization and its value to business, as the more accurate and voluminous the data on people is, the more patterns can be drawn from it.

Regulators Collaborate to Digitize CME for America’s Doctors

ABSTRACT Since 2010, the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME®) has maintained a database, the Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS), as a central repository for information about accredited education providers and their activities. The database has been expanded with the goal of creating an integrated, centralized data system. The ACCME collaboration since 2015 with specialty certifying boards served as a proof of concept that creating a centralized system that facilitates the free flow of data can provide value to physicians and medical regulatory boards. In 2018, ACCME undertook a pilot project that expanded reporting of credit for certifying boards to also include reporting of continuing medical education (CME) credit for 3 state medical licensing boards. Based on the success and lessons learned from the pilot, the ACCME decided to invest in building a new version of PARS to include any state medical licensing boards that chose to use the data. Launched in November 2021, the new PARS enables accredited organizations to enter CME credit data for all US physicians. Physicians may access their data via CMEPassport.org. By leveraging the power of a common database, regulatory bodies can demonstrate accountability, integrity, and transparency; reduce burdens on physicians; facilitate physicians’ commitment to lifelong learning; transform the perception of CME from a checkbox exercise to a currency for change; and contribute to advancing clinician practice and healthcare improvement for patients and communities throughout the country.

Governing Cross-Border Data Flows: International Trade Agreements and Their Limits

In modern international competition and cooperation, digital trade rules centered on the cross-border flow of data have become a competitive advantage for countries. Under the guidance of commercial freedom, the United States chooses to actively promote the free flow of data across borders. The European Union has placed the protection of personal data rights before the cross-border flow of data through the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and developing countries generally reserve space for industry policy interpretation. As one of the world’s largest economies, facing the needs of domestic industrial development and the pressure of international systems, China’s cross-border data flows’ policy is to ensure data flows under the premise of security, protection of personal information, seek international coordination of rules, and the freedom of transmission. The key question, therefore, is how to facilitate interoperability or find a middle ground among the divergent approaches in order to avoid the fragmentation of the digital trade system. The article suggests that a thin and narrowly scoped WTO agreement on e-commerce rules on cross-border data flows with sufficient policy space to accommodate different needs, policy preferences and priorities, and local contexts via legitimate exception provisions would be a welcome movement.

ЗАСТОСУВАННЯ МОДЕЛІ МАНДЕЛЛА-ФЛЕМІНГА В ЦИФРОВІЙ ЕКОНОМІЦІ: ПРИКЛАД УКРАЇНИ

Modern development of the noosphere, the emergence of new industries and a qualitative transformation of production and distribution relations are determined by widespread digitalization throughout the world. The main goals of digitalization are the development of innovations focused on the development of society 5.0, ensuring the free flow of data and capital. Considering the Mundell-Fleming model application as the instrument to support economic welfare it should be admitted the “impossible trinity” of the model and the lack of research to solve it. The paper investigates the Mundell-Fleming dilemma solution on the ground of digitalization. The research methodology is based on fundamental tenets of modern economics and general scientific methods, namely: induction, deduction, dialectical method and systematic approach, analysis and synthesis – all of these for analyzing the process of digitalization and to establish the principles, forms and foundations of the Mundell-Fleming model application in the digital dimension, systematization and generalization (to substantiate the phenomenon of digitalization), abstract-logical method (for recent tendencies substantiation), economic-mathematical (to compare and analyze data), institutional-comparative (for the analysis Mundell-Fleming model application in the digital economy). The paper studies the Mundell-Fleming model application in digital economy, it investigates global trends as well as peculiarities of digitalization in Ukrainian economy. We believe digitalization is the instrument to solve the Mundell-Fleming trilemma. The study reveals trends of banking digitalization as external as internal.

Researching the problems of digital economy development as an indicator of the information society: potential threats and prospects

The object of the paper is peculiarities of digital economy development in the framework of informatization of socio-economic, socio-cultural relations. It contributes to the in-depth development of the noosphere, the emergence of new industries and a qualitative transformation of production and distribution relations. The paper examines the impact of digitalization on transformational changes in the economy. As noted at the 14th G20 Summit, the main goals of digitalization are the development of innovations, focused on the development of society 5.0, ensuring the free flow of data and at the same time solving problems, related to information security and the protection of intellectual property rights, as well as bridging the digital gap and promoting the digitalization of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and the development of smart cities.
 The research methodology is based on theoretical and methodological analysis of the literature, statistical, comparative analysis, as well as synthesis, generalization and systems analysis.
 The study has revealed differences between the national approach and world experience in the interpretation of digitalization. For instance, in Ukraine the phenomenon involves, first of all, «digitization» in the field of data collection and analysis. At the same time, the concept of digitalization in developed countries is considered as the modernization of the manufacturing sector based on the implementation of information and communication technologies in order to reduce the capital and material intensity of products to increase competitiveness. In addition, the level of development of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) as one of the indicators of the information society has been analyzed. As a result, it was found, that about 80 % of all central banks in the world have been working on projects to issue their own digital currency. The basic requirements for national CBDC have been systematized.
 The practical significance, presented in the paper, lies in making recommendations for policy implementation of national economy digitalization. It is important, first of all, to «digitize» the real manufacturing sector, but not only create all sorts of «remote access services», clearly define the government position on cryptocurrencies and continue to implement the project of e-hryvnia (digital currency of National Bank of Ukraine) introduction.

Global E-Commerce Talks at the WTO: Positions on Selected Issues of the United States, European Union, China, and Japan

AbstractThere is a broad consensus that global electronic commerce needs the World Trade Organization (WTO) trade rules to govern it. The current mandate of the WTO is merely to examine the various trade-related aspects of e-commerce. Nevertheless, in recent years, some WTO members have put forward a proposal to begin negotiations for global e-commerce rules which was impeded due to the differing positions of developed and developing members. This paper examines the positions of the United States, the European Union, Japan, and China on the e-commerce multilateral rules negotiation issues. It then takes a look at the prospect of the WTO being able to reach an agreement on e-commerce. The analysis shows that the United States and the European Union have varying views on consumer privacy, information protection, and internet taxation. Although Japan sides with the United States on these issues and China is on the same page as the European Union regarding consumer privacy, China holds a different position from the United States and the European Union on the other two matters. China is not making commitments on data localization, free data flow, and forced transfer of source codes. Therefore, the outlook of the current e-commerce talks is not favorable for concluding WTO e-commerce agreements.