The value of the EU-27 data economy – firms with data processing as their core business model – will expand to 829 billion EUR by 2025, contributing to more than 5% of GDP. But data is playing an increasingly important role in almost every part of our economy. However, unlike other commodities, data is currently characterized by a low level of regulation.

Truth Social, a new social media platform backed by former President Donald Trump, sat at the top of Apple's free apps download charts.

The platform unveiled a soft launch late Sunday, according to Reuters, with many users prompted to join a waitlist. Some who tried to sign up reported glitches when attempting to create an account, though such issues are common in early app releases. Truth Social has been delayed several times. The full launch was first planned for Feb. 21, but that date has been pushed back to March 31.

How anti-science movements use the language of personal liberty and how we can address it. Looking back, the initial spread of COVID-19 in early 2020 illustrates that clinicians, epidemiologists and behavioral scientists around the world greatly underestimated the scope and intensity of resistance to mitigation measures that would follow. Many in the medical community have remained wedded to the view that direct observation of the soaring volume of death and morbidity associated with coronavirus infections will convert most people into adherents of mitigation measures. Hence, most public health communications on mask-wearing, social distancing, and vaccination stubbornly focus on and attempt to leverage efficacy data, patient testimonies, and the clout of clinicians, politicians, athletes and social media influencers, to increase public uptake.

Freedoms are most intimately and persistently felt as, and equated with, human rights. However, without strategic integration, freedom becomes an individualistic paradigm focused on personal gain, disengaged from collectivist public health efforts. The embrace of mitigation should be promoted as an expression of freedom and support of human rights, a communal paradigm focused on maintaining personal health and dignity.

This document provides a summary description of the eIDAS expert group’s understanding of the EUDI Wallet concept.

The EU Commission published the long-awaited Data Act on February 23, 2022. This is a progressive legislative proposal to increase access to data for the users of connected products suchs as Iot devices and related services. It is a significant move towards realising the MyData principle of portability, access, and re-use as well as the principle of interoperability. It will potentially also move the needle towards the shift from formal to actionable rights in terms of the right of data portability. With such a progressive agenda, the proposal will certainly also face significant opposition and counter-lobbying from those who stand to benefit from the status quo.

MyData Global is supportive of the Data Act proposal as a whole. And even in a good proposal, there is always room for some improvements, and here are our top picks to make the Data Act live up to its potential to create more human-centric, fair, sustainable, and prosperous digital societies for Europe and beyond