Government Access to Privately-Held Data: Business-to-Government Data Sharing

Climate change, pandemics and urban planning are just a few of the societal challenges that an efficient exploit of data could allow the public sector to tackle. In this perspective, business-to-government (B2G) data sharing can benefit the social good and allow for better policy decisions. Nevertheless, the possibility for the public sector to access privately-held data remains mostly unexplored. This contribution aims to explore the possible evolution of B2G sharing models within the future systems of data governance by evaluating rationales to foster government access to privately-held data and by analysing some of the barriers that hinder this kind of exploitation. This essay then seeks to present models of B2G data circulation through which societal benefits and data sharing could be improved; specifically, it focuses on the options of voluntary and mandatory B2G data sharing and outlines concrete experiences of B2G data sharing between private entities and European local administrations.