Commission urges governments to embrace potential of Big Data
3 Jul 2014 03:41 PM
Data collection and
exploitation is a growing phenomenon; in response to industry and grassroots
demands the European Commission is today calling on national governments to
wake-up to this “big data”
revolution.
Vice President @NeelieKroesEU said "It’s about time we
focus on the positive aspects of big data. Big data sounds negative and scary,
and for the most part it isn’t. Leaders need to embrace big
data.”
The main problems identified in
public consultations on big data are:
-
Lack of cross-border
coordination
-
Insufficient infrastructure and
funding opportunities
-
A shortage of data experts and
related skills
-
Fragmented and overly complex
legal environment
Main concrete actions proposed
to solve these problems:
-
A Big Data
public-private partnership that funds “game-changing”
big data ideas, in areas such aspersonalised medicine and food
logistics.
-
Create an open data
incubator (within the Horizon 2020 framework), to help SMEs set
up supply chains based on data and use cloud computing more.
-
Propose new rules
on "data ownership" and liability of data provision for
data gathered via Internet of Things (Machine to Machine
communication)
-
Mapping of data
standards, identifying potential gaps
-
Establish a series
of Supercomputing Centres of Excellence to increase
number of skilled data workers in Europe
-
Create network of data
processing facilities in different Member States
Actions the Commission will
scale-up or continue
-
-
Expanding investment in 5G technology (already
€700m committed to a public-private partnership) through international
agreements such as June agreement between European Commission and South
Korea
-
- Grand Coalition
for Digital jobs, and Opening Up
Education initiative to plug skills gap
-
- Best practice
guidelines for public authorities and open data
Background
Every single minute, the world
generates 1.7 million billion bytes of data, equal to 360,000 DVDs: over 6
megabytes of data for each person every day. As a result, the data sector is
growing by 40% per year, 7 times quicker than the overall information and
communications market, and big data is already helping us speed up diagnosis of brain injuries, find the perfect spot for wind farms , avoid traffic congestion, or forecast crop
yields in developing countries. Global big data technology and services
will grow to USD 16.9 billion in 2015 and data will create hundreds of
thousands of new jobs in Europe. Businesses that build their decision-making
processes on knowledge generated from data see a 5‑6% increase of
productivity.
In order to help EU citizens and
businesses more quickly to reap the full potential of data, the Commission will
be working with Parliament and Council on the successful completion of the
reform of the EU's data protection rules and final adoption of
the Directive on network and information security to ensure the
high level of trust fundamental for a thriving data-driven
economy.
Useful Links
Communication "Towards a thriving data-driven economy”
What big data can do for you – here are some
examples
Digital
Agenda
Neelie Kroes
@NeelieKroesEU
@EUDataEcosystem
MEMO/14/455