The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) today announced the first comprehensive Trusted Data Sharing Framework (“Framework”) to facilitate trusted data sharing between organisations.
The trusted use of data is the foundation of a vibrant Digital Economy, and trusted data flows have the potential to deliver tremendous benefits to both organisations and consumers. For organisations, it facilitates more effective information exchanges, and enables shared data assets (e.g. between business partners) to support the development of innovative solutions, to customise services and processes for different market segments. For consumers, their willingness to share their data with organisations reflects the amount of confidence they have in an organisation’s ability to use and safeguard data. The intent of the Framework is that with stronger safeguards and clarity on regulatory compliance, consumers will be more ready to share their data and consequently benefit from more personalised goods and services.
While organisations have begun to recognise the value of data, they face the following challenges in sharing their data assets:
- A lack of guidance, methodologies and systemic approaches for data sharing;
- Establishing trust with partners when sharing data;
- Ensuring compliance with regulations such as the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA);
- Valuing the data assets they currently have; and
- Addressing concerns that data sharing could result in a loss of business competitiveness or exposure of trade secrets.
This can impact their ability to maximise the use of data to develop and bring innovative products and services to market.
To address these challenges, the Framework helps organisations to establish a set of baseline practices by providing a common ‘data-sharing language’, and suggesting a systematic approach to the broad considerations for establishing trusted data sharing partnerships. It incorporates content from existing PDPC guides on personal data anonymisation and sharing; new materials such as a guide to data valuation for data sharing; and sample legal templates to enable contractual data sharing. When using the Framework, organisations will also be guided through the regulatory considerations, and the contractual, technical and operational safeguards needed in a data sharing arrangement.
The Framework can help uplift practice norms – enabling better, trusted data flows for the Digital Economy both within the local ecosystem and globally. They can also empower emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) by incorporating accountability, transparency and human-centricity by-design right from the beginning.
The Framework can be downloaded at www2.imda.gov.sg/AI-and-Data from today.
