The EU’s co-legislators namely the European Parliament and the Council have adopted a regulation concerning the free movement of non-personal data – what they call now ‘’ EU’s fifth freedom’’. Non-personal data includes, for instance, machine-generated data or commercial data. Specific examples are aggregated datasets used for big data analytics.
This legislation is truly a game changer, potentially providing enormous efficiency gains for both companies and public authorities. It will reduce data protectionism, which is threatening the digital economy, and pave the way for artificial intelligence, cloud computing and big data analysis. Building a European data economy and strengthening the data sector will boost Europe’s competitiveness and double its value to 4% of GDP in 2020.
The strategic objectives of the BigData@Heart project reflect this incoming legislation as the project consortium will assemble consented cohorts, EHRs (electronic health records), disease quality improvement registries and trial data in order to deliver novel disease and outcome definitions. Unlocking the potential of big data will allow translating the insights from these analyses to standardises disease management concepts, guidelines and drug development.
As a conclusion, data driven policies will show how progress in treatment and management of cardiovascular disease can be made to the benefit of the European citizen.
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