Industry statement on banning forced data localisation in the EU

We, the undersigned trade associations, welcome the European Union’s Competitiveness and Information Technology Ministers’ discussions yesterday in Tallinn on the free movement of data.

We remain staunch supporters of the free movement of data across borders and strongly oppose unjustified national data localisation rules, which create legal uncertainty for all businesses and undermine Europe’s growing data economy.

Any existing or future data localisation requirements should only be considered in narrowly-defined, exceptional cases, subject to strict scrutiny and prior notification.

We therefore urge the European Commission to present a bespoke legislative proposal this autumn, focusing solely on banning all existing and future unjustified data localisation requirements in the EU Single Market.