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Paper short abstract:

The paper will discuss the concept of Data Free Flow with Trust, how it has gone from a Japanese initiative to be part of the discourse of the EU, USA, or the OECD. Japanese diplomacy has pushed for it to become part of the international agenda and the paper will assess its success.

Paper long abstract:

The Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo proposed the idea of Data Free Flow with Trust (DFFT) in the World Economic Forum in 2019. It was a way to improve transborder data flows to facilitate electronic trade integrating the necessary safeguards for copyright, consumer rights, personal data protection and cybersecurity to increase trust. It was also a reaction to data localization a policy practiced by countries such as Russia or China, that fragments the market and creates trade barriers. 

Japan has used a lot of diplomatic efforts to make this concept part of the global discussion in the matter, both at bilateral, regional, and international for a, for example, in the negotiation of free trade agreements and as a convener of the Joint Statement Initiative on electronic commerce of the World Trade Organization. It pushed for it strongly in the G20 meeting of 2020 that it hosted, which had as a result the Osaka Track for Data Governance. Now, the expression “data free flow with trust” has permeated the political discourse of the European Union, the USA, or the OECD, that pinpoint it as a common objective. The only problem is that those States have themselves different policies relating, for example, to data protection. Therefore, the moment has come to see if interoperability is possible and flesh the DFFT concept out with practical measures and a whole toolbox of legal and policy instruments. For this, the G7 meeting hosted by Japan in 2023 will be a watershed moment and its results would be studied in the paper.