Standards Development

Scope

(The scope shall precisely define the limits of the new field of technical activity. Scopes shall not repeat general aims and principles governing the work of the organization but shall indicate the specific area concerned.)

Standardisation in the area of data management, dataspaces, cloud and edge, including: data governance,data quality and data lifecycle management; interoperability, portability and switch ability; organizational frameworks and methodologies, including IT management systems; processes and products evaluation schemes; smart technology, objects, distributed computing devices, data services.

Purpose

A Creation of European Technical Committee on “Data management, dataspaces, cloud and edge” would strengthen the application of important legislative acts under preparation or in force in Europe, as stated in various EC policy initiatives aim to “create a single European data space – a genuine single market for data, open to data from across the world – and where personal as well as non-personal data, including sensitive business data, are secure and businesses also have easy access to an almost infinite amount of high-quality industrial data, boosting growth and creating value, while minimising the human carbon and environmental footprint ... [and] where EU law can be enforced effectively, and where all data-driven products and services comply with the relevant standards of the EU’s single market”, according to Communication from the European Commission "An European strategy for data".

The implementation of the above-mentioned EC strategy led to many legal and technical-policy initiatives that should require supporting standardization documents.

Concerning "Data", important legal frameworks are proposed or adopted in Europe, like:

• Data Governance Act (DGA) to provide a regulatory framework for accessing government data (B2G)

• Data Act (building on DGA) to provide a business regulatory framework (B2B)

• GDPR compliance with GDPR Data Protection principles for personal data privacy with a regulatory framework DPO supervision / admin in the AI Act

• Digital Market Acts (DMA) focus on data interoperability to avoid monopolistic practices impacts the data act. Could require standardization e.g. for algorithmic fairness and data-handling.

• Digital Services Act (DSA)

• Interoperable Europe Act, laying down measures for public sector interoperability.

These frameworks connect to and interwork with the AI Framework (AI Act, AI Product Liability directive), the Cybersecurity Framework (NIS2, Cyber Resilience Act), the Cloud Certification Scheme (EUCS) and ENISA Cybersecurity Certification schemes. The EU Rolling Plan for ICT Standardisation 2023 (RP 2023) identifies "Data Economy" as a foundational driver for Europe’s "Digital Transition" supported by key enablers such as "Cloud and Edge Computing", "Big data, open data public sector information" that, in the RP2024 now under development, will be more focused on “Data interoperability”.

The RP2023 clearly point out the need for standards that support the European data strategy and Digital Transformation and it calls clearly for standardization activities, addressing:

• availability of data, imbalances in market power, data interoperability and quality, data governance, data infrastructures and technologies, data lifecycle (collection, record keeping, archival and long-term preservation of information) as focal policy initiatives and needs for the data economy.

• portability of cloud services, interoperability, data protection and management of multiple clouds.

• the edge/cloud X-continuum paradigm and standardisation challenge - embracing the notion of computing continuum, where the right compute resources are placed at optimal processing points.

• DCAT-AP (W3C's Data Catalogue vocabulary – Application Profile), with a direct invitation, since RP2020, to coordinate with W3C some specific standardization activity, as well as the other vocabularies provided by the former ISA2 programme.

The RP 2023 refers clearly to create a link with standardization and open source on these topics and to ISO/IEC JTC 1 (e.g. cloud architecture).

The proposed new TC will identify/develop specific technical standards related to Data management, Dataspaces, Cloud and Edge that support and encourage the "widespread" adoption of digitisation, a "Single Digital Market” of industry within the EU. The objective is to support greater efficiency, productivity and competitiveness of EU industry and its full integration in global digital market.

-Examples of benefits will be:

-to reduce costs compliance and market entry barriers;

-to align this context with the support of standardisation, enhancing innovation and competitiveness, particularly in data-driven sectors.

-thanks to harmonised rules for dataspaces interoperability, to facilitate seamless data exchange, create business opportunities by enabling data utilization across sectors and strengthen the Single Market.