Framing Accountability in Business-to-Government Data Sharing: The Gap Filling Role of Businesses’ Corporate Digital Responsibility

This study questions the accountability gap in business-to-government data sharing: if most European policy efforts are being devoted to the objective of unlocking private datasets for the “public good” under the EU Strategy for data, less attention has been given to the subsequent moment of the performance and execution of business-to-government data sharing agreements in a transparent and accountable manner to the public that should benefit from these. Given the accountability gaps left open by both public and the data protection regulations in the context of business-to-government data sharing, the analysis focuses on the notion of corporate digital responsibility as a gap-filler between public law-based and data protection-law based accountability models. This specific responsibility of businesses handling digital assets, as data, is given by the match between businesses’ social accountability duties under the more general corporate social responsibility (CSR) framework and the legal and ethical obligations these bear in respect to the design and management of their datasets. The consideration of the specific problem of businesses’ accountability in B2G data sharing enables to contextualise the debate on the possible contribution of corporations to welfare objectives in the digital economy and to draw more general conclusions on the role of corporate law in strengthening businesses’ duties of accountability regarding enacted data and technology-related policies vis à vis external stakeholders.