Workshop on data governance and agile solutions across borders

Panelists of the workshop discussed a system’s approach to data governance through the concept of the Datasphere, and exchanged on how to implement innovative and rights-respecting solutions across borders. 

Today few mechanisms exist to bridge policy silos and the gaps between technology developments and regulatory frameworks. This explains the struggle to address the challenges of our data-driven society. And this is where the concept of sandboxes can be useful – as a more agile instrument than what we’ve been using to make public policy and regulation. Sandboxes have a potential use anywhere innovation is hampered by a lack of trust or uncertainty about how the regulation applies, emerges, or where risks are not fully understood. 

The recently launched report on sandboxes for data provides a starting point for considering different types of sandboxes as mechanisms for building data governance that are more conducive to the complex challenges of data and more agile and multistakeholder in nature. The report draws on lessons of sandboxes throughout the world and proposes a preliminary roadmap for how cross-border sandboxes for data could be established.

The goal of the workshop was to present the work of the Datasphere Initiative and receive feedback regarding its theoretical framing, as well as the concrete proposals put forth in the report “Sandboxes for data – Creating spaces for agile solutions across borders”.  The report kick-started the Datasphere Initiative’s work to examine the model of cross-border sandboxes for data, and how they could offer workable solutions for complex data challenges.