The G7 has agreed on cross-border data use and digital commerce

The Group of the Seven Most Developed Countries in the World (G7) has agreed on the principles of cross-border data use and digital commerce. Britain announced it on Friday, calling it a breakthrough that could liberalize international trade. The agreement was reached on Friday by G7 trade ministers meeting in London. The agreement sets a middle ground between the highly regulated data protection regimes used in European countries and the more open approach of the United States. "We are against digital protectionism and authoritarianism, and today we have adopted the G7 (Digital Trade Principles), which will govern the group's approach to digital trade," the statement said. Digital commerce is broadly defined as a trade in goods and services that is either licensed or supplied digitally, covering activities ranging from film and television distribution to professional services. In Britain alone, this trade reached £ 326 billion (€ 386.39 billion) in 2019, a quarter of its entire trade, according to official figures. However, differing rules governing the use of customer data can create significant barriers, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, for which compliance is complicated and costly. The agreement reached on Friday is the first step in reducing these barriers and could lead to common digital trade rules. The Digital Trade Principles agreement covers open digital markets, cross-border data flows, guarantees for workers, consumers and businesses, digital trading systems and fair and inclusive global governance, the communication said. "We should address unjustified barriers to cross-border data flows and continue to address privacy, data protection, intellectual property rights and security," it said in the annex to the document. "This agreement is a real breakthrough that is the result of hard diplomatic efforts," said an unnamed British official familiar with the agreement. "We all rely on digital commerce every day, but for years the global rules of the game have been like the Wild West, making it difficult for companies to seize huge opportunities." The G7 is made up of the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada.