Cross-border data flow in the digital single market : study on data location restrictions : executive summary

This document comprises the Final Report, produced under the contract between the European Commission and a consortium consisting of time.lex, Spark Legal Network and Tech4i2, for the project 'Cross-border data flow in the digital single market: study on data location restrictions' (SMART 2015/0054). This study was organised against the backdrop of the Digital Single Market Strategy, adopted by the Commission in May 2015. Subsequently, the Commission announced plans for a European 'Free flow of data' initiative that would "tackle restrictions on the free movement of data for reasons other than the protection of personal data within the EU and unjustified restrictions on the location of data for storage or processing purposes." Thus, this study aims to address the identification of examples of barriers that hinder the free flow of data across the European Union, including a quantification of their impacts, and the definition of methodologies and frameworks that allow their accurate description, with a view of assessing their necessity, and thus their justification, in a Digital Single Market.