We must dismantle the barriers that GDPR creates for global science
The writer is a senior adviser at the US National Institutes of Health
The lifesaving work of the biomedical science community is caught in an unsettling — and unintended — crossfire over global data sharing. Last year, Joe Biden and Ursula von der Leyen committed to a transatlantic framework to restore commercial data flows, which were abruptly halted in 2020 by the European Court of Justice. But the US and EU must now take a further pivotal step to dismantle the data-sharing silos in medicine and public health that arose from Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation.
The GDPR represents the most progressive measure in decades when it comes to giving individuals greater control over their personal data. Its territorial reach arguably demonstrates what has been coined the Brussels effect — the capacity of the EU to forge sectoral standards as a condition of market access, that are then adopted by international firms.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Robert Eiss
