cep and EY Study: Businesses call for more legal certainty when dealing with data

An overwhelming majority of respondents, more than 75%, said they would develop or use more digital solutions if they had more legal certainty. "In order to master the digital transformation and strengthen European sovereignty, domestic businesses urgently need more legal certainty when dealing with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), for example when anonymising data, when trading or transferring data internationally, and in general when it comes to the interaction of data protection rules and the new EU digital regulation," says Anja Hoffmann, a lawyer at cep. She analysed the survey results together with cep digital expert Anselm Küsters.

The aim of the survey was to gain insights into the use of cloud services, data sharing and the associated legal and technological challenges, as well as to find out businesses' attitudes towards current EU digital regulation.

According to the survey, European businesses continue to face a number of obstacles, ranging from data protection concerns to legal uncertainties and technological barriers. "At the same time, businesses recognise the potential of EU initiatives – but the new requirements are too complex, their interaction is still too unclear, or there is scepticism about whether they will solve the problems," says Küsters.

The cep researchers call for clear rules on when data can be considered anonymised. "An international agreement on data access for national security purposes could, in the long run, free businesses from the threat of data protection illegality in transatlantic data transfers," advises Hoffmann. This is because a significant proportion of businesses believe that the recent adequacy finding with the US will not be valid in the long term. The EU urgently needs to do more to promote European cloud providers as alternatives to US services and thus create more competition. Measures are needed to reduce the market dominance of large cloud providers in the future.