G7 Data Protection Authorities discuss flow of data across borders
From September 6th to September 9th, 2022 a meeting between representatives of the G7’s Data Protection Authorities was held in Bonn, Germany, to discuss current regulatory and technological issues concerning the concept of Data Flow with Free Trust (DFFT), a proposed guiding principle for international cooperation on data flows.
It aims at providing answers to several questions in order to create a safe global digital environment in which the protection of data flow is guaranteed. The most important question is: how to overcome the existing data flow barriers? It may seem difficult to introduce a harmonization between countries that have a completely different approach and regulations in regard to personal data protection. To answer this question, a bottom – up approach was adopted for the implementation of the DFFT: it is foreseen that high – level intragovernmental discussions that result in pragmatic rule – making will be held, in order to parallel the public/private relationship for the resolution of individual issues.
Scholars and experts seem to think that RegTech could prove a very useful help to the implementation of the DFFT. To tackle some of the issues that were found in the various discussions and that resulted from research, the World Economic Forum issued a white paper finding seven common success factors that define the best deployment of RegTech.
This concept, first proposed by Japan’s late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2019, is now moving into the implementation phase, mainly concerning trade agreements including e – commerce. A milestone regarding this topic will probably be the next G7 Conference, which will be held in Japan in 2023. Kishida Fumio, the new Japanese Prime Minister, claimed his country’s initiative in the project, and pledged his commitment to the continuous development of the DFFT.
