Digital Balancing Act

Navigating Data Governance Priorities in the Indo-Pacific

How data is accessed, aggregated, used, and shared will shape the technologies—including 5G, IoT, and AI—and economies of the future. The rules, especially the international norms, standards, and agreements, shaping the use and monitoring of this data (commonly referred to as data governance) are therefore of critical importance in determining what countries and companies will have an advantage in the innovation critical to economic development and national security.

Many countries, especially Asian economies with strong tech sectors such as India, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and China, are working to shape these rules. Based on differing national interests and views on issues such as data privacy and government surveillance, these countries and others have developed a number of competing and often contradictory frameworks for data governance. However, to maximize the value of data to the global economy and preserve the global networks that have driven and will continue to drive innovation, unified standards will need to be set.

NBR’s Digital Balancing Act project brings together experts on topics ranging from data security in 5G networks, to public health data, to the role of digital trade agreements in data governance for an in-depth analysis on the complex and ever-evolving question of global governance.