Data Sharing Governance in Digital Twins and Smart Cities: The European Data Strategy

The European Digital Strategy is crucial for understanding data sharing within Europe and globally. The surge in data flow across sectors brings challenges in data quality, security, and trustworthiness, necessitating interoperability, cooperation, and control within data spaces. New legal and technological questions which occur when designing the Digital Twins are relevant given the novelty of such digital spaces. The paper analyzes the European legislative landscape on data governance, highlighting approaches to controlling data circulation. Legal frameworks emphasize stakeholder roles, while recent methods address data handling, tools, and infrastructures. The study delves into the practical implementation of regulations across enterprises and stakeholders, highlighting the challenges and ambiguities within data governance provisions. The study concludes by emphasizing the EU’s efforts to establish a sustainable model for European market growth and data circulation. By harmonizing regulatory frameworks with data sharing procedures, the EU aims to promote market competition and safeguard common European values. However, challenges persist in implementing the EDS, with ambiguous terminology and lacking interpretations from European Courts.