Strategies for Data and Artificial Intelligence at the core of this EU flagship initiative
***
Earlier in February, the European Commission has unveiled its actions for the digital transformation of Europe. This new initiative will be under the coordination of Executive Vice-President for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age, Margrethe Vestager and EU Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton. CEMA welcomes that agriculture and farming remain a significant focus of the digital transformation.
The main communication “Shaping Europe’s Digital Future” is a five-year long-term roadmap which focus on three main objectives:
- Technology that works for the people
- A fair and competitive digital economy
- Open, democratic and sustainable society
The idea behind this is that every European citizen and business reap the benefits of digitalisation regardless of their age, skills or sector in which they work.
The policy package also include, a European Data strategyand the policy options to ensure the human-centric development of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
EU Data Strategy - Europe as a leader in the data economy
The main objective of this strategy is to make sure the EU becomes a role model and a leader for a society empowered by data. For this, it aims at setting up a true European data space, a single market for data, to unlock unused data, allowing it to flow freely within the European Union and across sectors for the benefit of businesses, researchers and public administrations.
These European Data Spaces are categorised as such:
- Common European industrial (manufacturing) data space
- Common European Green Deal data space
- Common European mobility data space
- Common European health data space
- Common European financial data space
- Common European energy data space
- Common European agricultural data space. The Code of Conduct for sharing of agricultural data by contractual agreement is mentioned in this part as guiding principles to follow for data-sharing in the agri-food chain.
- Common European data spaces for public administrations
- Common European skills data space
- European Open Science Cloud
The EU will be looking at options on how to establish the right regulatory framework regarding data governance, access and reuse mainly focusing on data protection, fundamental rights, safety and cybersecurity.
Artificial Intelligence White Paper
With this document the Commission would like to support the uptake of AI while addressing potential risks associated with certain uses of this new technology.
As stated in the White Paper, trustworthiness is a prerequisite for its uptake while it opens immense chances for Europe and its citizens and businesses. This is a chance for Europe to prove its capacity in developing safe, reliable and sophisticated products and services from aeronautics to energy, automotive and medical equipment. The potential of increasing efficiency in the farming sector is often stated in this document.
The combination of technological and industrial strengths in the EU will help to become a global leader in innovation in the data economy and its applications as set out in the European data strategy. SMEs, skills and the adoption of AI by the public sector are on the focus of this paper too.
This White Paper will also look at the key elements of a future regulatory framework for AI in Europe that will create a unique ‘ecosystem of trust’.
The White Paper on Artificial Intelligence is now open for public consultation until 31 May 2020.