Post event | Policy Meeting on Data Governance

On 28th June, The EU SME Centre and the European Chamber organised a Policy Meeting on Data Governance with Ms Kendra Schaefer, Partner at Trivium China, and Ms Isabelle Hajjar, Vice Chair of the Cybersecurity Sub-Working Group at the European Chamber and Head of Compliance for the EU & APAC Data Privacy & Cybersecurity specialist at TekID.

In recent years, data governance has come to the forefront of policy considerations, both in the domestic context but also looking at the global arena, in governments around the world. In the case of the European Union (EU), the bloc has adopted an approach aiming at becoming a global standards-setter by being at the forefront of regulating in areas like data protection and Artificial Intelligence. China, in the meantime, is also in the process on shaping its own data governance system through a slew of laws and regulations like the Cybersecurity Law, the Personal Information Protection Law and the recently passed Data Security Law.

This increased push to create a framework for the digital and data markets is bound to have a strong impact across the board, including on the ability of SMEs to remain competitive and innovative. In their overview of the Chinese and European models, Ms Schaefer and Ms Hajjar touched upon the common challenges emerging from the data and digital economies, the different philosophies behind both the European and the Chinese approach, and the potential impact on companies.