Non-personal data sharing: Potential, pathways and problems

The potential of data, data sharing, and related computational tools in generating societal value or public good has now been widely recognised. Globally, policymakers are moving not only to secure personal data protection and mature digital rights for data subjects, but also to build pathways to harness broader public benefit from data. In order to create such value and unlock existing, siloed datasets—data sharing is a necessity. Within this, non-personal data has found particular focus. India’s expert committee report recommends a mandatory sharing framework to the governance of non-personal data sharing. This paper analyses the mandatory approach through a review of evolving global approaches to data sharing (mandatory, voluntary or otherwise), and suggests pathways that may be best suited to the Indian data economy. While most data regimes are nascent and dynamic, broader policy directions create strong indicators for varied approaches, and likely outcomes based on current practice. Based on this analysis, it is found that a staggered, ecosystem-oriented approach is the most feasible and likely to yield outcomes that the framework has identified as key purpose. This approach enables collaboration across stakeholders, places focus on building technical and infrastructural capacity, incentivising data sharing, and uses pilots as a means to build iterative and durable policy. Therefore, it is important for India to invest in fundamental building blocks, underlying jurisprudence and consultative policymaking in order to mould a robust data sharing ecosystem.