Sharing Bytes
Experts call on authorities to break up monopolies on data in the public and private sectors to promote sound growth of the digital economy. Newschina presents some of their views on digital and data issues
There is an ongoing deadlock in the sector of e-government and the digital economy: everyone sees the benefits of data disclosure but no one wants to share data.
Focusing on the future of data governance and the digital economy, the Data Value and Data Service Forum was held online and offline in Beijing on August 3. Running concurrent with the 2021 Global Digital Economy Conference in Beijing, experts at the forum discussed issues such as data silos – collections of data held by one group that is not easily or fully accessible by other groups – and fully utilizing data value before China's Data Security Law goes into effect on September 1.
Led by Xiaodong Lee, former head of China Internet Network Information Center, the panel included Li Yuxiao, secretarygeneral of Cyber Security Association of China, Meng Qingguo, director of the Center for Internet Governance, Tsinghua University, and Lin Yuanqing, CEO of leading AI company Aibee, where they discussed data governance regulations, cross-border data flow, data compliance and the digital economy.
According to the G20 Digital Economy Development and Cooperation Initiative announced during the Hangzhou Summit in 2016, the digital economy refers to a broad range of economic activities involving digital computing, internet-based markets, information and communication technology (ICT), and other important drivers of productivity and economic structural optimization.
Official data showed China's digital economy reached 39.2 trillion yuan (US$6T) in 2020, accounting for 38.6 percent of the country's total GDP. The digital economy is a priority in the 14th Five-year Plan (20212025), and China aims to increase the GDP output of core digital economy industries by 10 percent by 2025.
Xiaodong Lee, also founder and CEO of the Fuxi Institution, a non-profit research institution on internet innovation and development, said that China's internet penetration rate has exceeded 70 percent, and the number of internet users has exceeded one billion. He added that global internet penetration is expected to surpass two-thirds of the world's population by the end of this year.
“In addition to data itself, data collection and its utility, the scope of data governance also includes data carriers, data processing technologies and algorithms,” Lee said at the forum. “Data governance is of the utmost importance to the sustainable development of the digital economy.”
Xiaodong Lee: In the era of the burgeoning digital economy, what are the main challenges for data governance and how should it better serve the digital economy?
Li Yuxiao: China's Data Security Law will take effect on September 1, which will become the bottom line for the country's data governance. Data governance aims to discover the value of data, facilitate orderly data flow and data authentication. I will talk about data governance from three perspectives.
First, start from scratch. At present, there is a lack of basic theory, technical support, effective tools, and overall operating regulations for data transactions, ownership, and governance. The rapid development of digital technologies has made international cooperation in data governance a possibility. But cooperation is mostly case by case, and standards are needed to attain global public services and emancipate productive forces. Preparation for global fundamental regulations and related tools have been inadequate.
Second, data boundary issues [such as] ownership, trading, authentication, and discovery. The Data Security Law stipulates that the development and utilization of data, data exchange, and data technology development should conform to people's rights, public interests and social ethics. Meanwhile, examining cross-border data flow requires us to have a clear and overall picture of data itself. In terms of data trading, products, authentication, and management, China is already the top data-producing country. Through data security and data governance practices, China has become a big data security market
and is set to become a world leader in data governance.
Third, while discovering the value of data, we must pay close attention to the state of security, trading, circulation and quality. Clear rules and regulations have to be established through China's trading market, and we need to give regulators more governance capacity or a more favorable governance structure.
If supervisors lack the means to govern, sooner or later the trading of data in China will end in chaos.
Therefore, we can promote fundamental research, define data boundaries, and facilitate data value discovery through the joint efforts of the government, enterprises, and associations.
Xiaodong Lee: Lots of crucial data is in the hands of authorities. How should we promote public disclosure of government data without affecting national security?
Meng Qingguo: At a time when developing e-governance is in full swing across the country, the integration and public disclosure of government data, however, needs improvement.
First, data residing on government platforms accounts for about 18 percent of the total managed by departments. Second, the proportion of data shared between departments is low (most less than 20 percent).
The commitment to share data within departments has largely not been fulfilled. Third, complete data only accounts for 16 percent of the total data collected, meaning that data integrity and quality are poor. In a word, government data sharing suffers from low data aggregation, limited sharing and poor data quality.
The government owns most data, and there are many reasons behind the current data silos. Databases are a resource, but they are not connected and hence no data flow. In some sense, this makes them not valuable.
Nowadays government departments are unwilling to share their data because the responsibilities for sharing are not clear. Government agencies are afraid to take the potential risk of sharing data with other departments.
According to regulations, government agencies are held accountable for their data just like parents are for their children. If data collected and owned by a government agency is released and used by others, it shoulders any potential risk.
A government agency has the responsibility to make the most of the data it owns. We urgently need to define their rights and determine the responsibilities of government departments in the collection, sharing and public disclosure of data. Overall planning, standards and management of data resources have to be established in China's e-government drive.
Xiaodong Lee: The goal of data governance, data trading, and public disclosure is to develop industry. How can data compliance release the value of data?
Lin Yuanqing: The 14th Five-year Plan clearly states that it is necessary to accelerate digital development, create new advantages in the digital economy and promote the digital transformation of industry. Digitalization has become the only way for many industries to transform and upgrade. For the real economy, digitalization will be a priority for the next five to 10 years.
At a time when data assets are being accumulated and the utilization of data is being explored constantly, data compliance is bound to become required for different industries, that will greatly affect the fate of enterprises and even entire industries.
China has been improving its data compliance, requiring enterprises to keep up with national requirements and raising awareness of data compliance.
The toughest privacy and security law in the world is the General Data Protection Regulation, which was drafted and implemented by the European Union in 2018.
When it comes to issues such as data security and privacy security, we should align with the toughest international requirements while conforming to national laws and regulations.
This will help promote data compliance into concrete practices more rapidly. For the healthy growth of the industry and the longterm development of enterprises, it is necessary for the government and enterprises to come together and improve the level of data security protection.