IViR & TILT City Data Governance Conference

The impact of the new EU data governance legal framework at the local level

On October 24, 2024, the Institute for Information Law (IViR) of the University of Amsterdam and the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT) of Tilburg University, together with the Digital Legal Lab and the research initiative of the Amsterdam Law School: the Digital Transformation of Decision-Making (DTDM), are organising the City Data Governance Conference.

Governance mechanisms for data access and use are rapidly unfolding across sectors at the local level. Think of the use of data technologies to enable ‘Smart Cities’ and the establishment of infrastructures to facilitate the sharing of data between private and public players in sectors like mobility, health, agriculture or energy. New EU legislation, such as the Data Act and Data Governance Act, is increasingly impacting local players and governments, while they have limited agency to shape the governance of data they seek to access and use.

During the conference, we aim to carve out the agency and responsibilities of local public and private players under EU law. We will discuss several data governance approaches that might assist municipalities and other local players with getting some form of access to data, including data commons, data spaces, and alternative forms of ‘intermediated’ data sharing and use. The objective of the conference is to discuss whether the Data Governance Act, the Data Act and the concept of Data Spaces will support local players in setting up appropriate data governance regimes, and what questions may arise when setting these up.

Against this background, the conference:

• Unpacks the agency of municipalities and other local players from a legal and political-economic internal market perspective in the context of EU law;
• Discusses the role of local players in implementing EU data governance approaches;
• Explores new data governance approaches and related challenges for data access and use researched at the Institute for Information Law (IViR) of the University of Amsterdam and the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT) of Tilburg University; and
• Discusses with policymakers and academics practical implications for local players created by the recently adopted market-driven data laws and identifies questions for future research.