The European Council welcomes a European strategy for data

The European Council has welcomed the European strategy for data, which supports the EUʼs global digital ambitions to build a true European competitive data economy.

All while ensuring European values and a high level of data security, data protection, and privacy. The Council stressed the need to make high-quality data more readily available and promoted better sharing and pooling of data, as well as interoperability, all included in the conclusions of a special meeting of the European Council held in Brussels in October, 2020.

The European Council welcomes the creation of common European data spaces in strategic sectors, and in particular invites the Commission to give priority to the health data space, which should be set up by the end of 2021.

Not only this, the European Council also calls for the development of an EU-wide framework for secure public electronic identification (e-ID), including interoperable digital signatures, to provide people with control over their online identity and data as well as to enable access to public, private and cross-border digital services.

Furthermore, it invites the Commission to come forward with a proposal for a European Digital Identification initiative by mid-2021.