Per special commentator Pan Helin
On the afternoon of June 22, the Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reform held its 26th meeting. The meeting pointed out that data, as a new factor of production, is the foundation of digitization, networking and intelligence, and has been rapidly integrated into production, distribution, circulation, consumption and social service management and other links, profoundly changing production methods, lifestyles and social governance methods. . It is necessary to establish a compliant and efficient data element circulation and transaction system, improve the entire data process compliance and regulatory rules system, and build a standardized data transaction market. It is necessary to improve the market-based allocation mechanism of data elements, better play the guiding and regulating role of the government in the distribution of data element income, and establish a data element income distribution system that reflects efficiency and promotes fairness.
Data trading platform is in the ascendant
At present, all parts of the country are in full swing to explore the marketization of data elements. For example, on June 18, the Southern Data Service Alliance Innovation and Development Conference was held in Huangpu District, Guangzhou. On the same day, the alliance released the “Consensus on Promoting the Development of the Data Element Market”, and put forward proposals in four aspects: strengthening the supply of data elements, innovating the data market mechanism, activating the data trading market, and improving the data security guarantee, so as to jointly promote the development of the data element market.
It has been nearly ten years since the wave of China’s big data industry, and the wave of data industry development has promoted the improvement of the overall digital level of various industries. The accumulation of data has precipitated data resources for enterprises, and formed some data service providers with industry characteristics. The development of industrial digitization and digital industrialization continues to build and improve the digital ecosystem. At the same time, the exploration of data trading across the country has been increasing, and data trading platforms and data exchanges have sprung up, promoting the market-based allocation of data elements and the high-quality development of the digital economy.
Up to now, Guiyang, Beijing, Shaanxi, Wuhan, Chongqing, Shaanxi, Hunan and other regions have successively established big data trading centers. For example, on March 31 last year, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology, together with the Municipal Finance Bureau, the Municipal Bureau of Commerce, and the Municipal Party Committee’s Internet Information Office, organized Beijing Financial Holding Group to lead the establishment of Beijing International Big Data Trading Co., Ltd. and held a release event in Beijing. meeting. At the press conference, the Beijing International Big Data Exchange was established, and the Beijing data trading system was launched. It is positioned to build a leading data trading infrastructure in China and an important international data cross-border circulation hub, and leverage the technology-intensive and data-intensive two-wheel drive to Technology promotes circulation, promotes innovation through circulation, and explores new industries, new formats and new models of the digital economy. The Shanghai Data Exchange focuses on key common problems such as difficulty in confirming rights, difficulty in pricing, difficulty in mutual trust, difficulty in entering the market, and difficulty in supervision, forming a series of innovative arrangements.
It is worth noting that at present, my country’s data exchanges are mainly established and operated by the government or technology companies. Data exchanges in various regions are mainly responsible for the operation of the local data market in the development of the factor market. Therefore, the operation scope, pricing mechanism and target customers of enterprises are mainly local, which has caused many problems.
On the one hand, the current data trading platforms in my country have the problem of repeated positioning and fighting each other, which not only fails to form a joint force for the development of the data element market, but also leads to the fragmentation of the data trading market due to the existence of regional data trading platforms. Liquidity, there are problems such as small transaction scale, disordered transaction price, and low transaction quality, and it is impossible to form a systematic, large-scale and professional mature business model.
On the other hand, my country’s data transactions are mainly based on pure raw data trading and initial processing of raw data. The scale development of data algorithms, data models and data derivatives is in its infancy, and the value of data has not been fully developed and reflected. At the same time, there is a lack of unified standards for data pricing in the data transaction process. Some transaction data formats are not standardized and the content is incomplete, making it difficult to accurately measure the value of the data. More importantly, the imbalance between data supply and demand is more prominent, and data transactions are difficult to meet. The effective demand of society, the imbalance and mismatch of resource elements, and the timeliness of data need to be further improved.
Forming a joint force faces multiple challenges
At present, the data trading market is facing huge challenges in terms of data rights confirmation, data circulation, data protection, data supervision and data quality.
Therefore, to promote the development of the data element market, the first and most important thing is to establish a data property rights system, clarify the concept of “data rights” from a legal perspective, define it legally, and establish a set of property rights that are different from tangible and exclusive ownership. The system allows data to flow fully without being monopolized under the premise of privacy protection. At the same time, technical means should be actively used to achieve property rights definition. For example, the current privacy computing technology and blockchain technology can realize “data availability is invisible” and “data can be calculated but not identifiable”, providing technical support for the separation of data ownership and use rights.
Secondly, to promote data circulation, it is necessary to strengthen the construction of digital information infrastructure, open and competitive data element market, data transaction and management platform, and promote the circulation of data elements among regions, departments, industries and enterprises. At the same time, it will cultivate multiple data elements market entities, innovate data element business models, transaction models, income distribution models, and transaction pricing models, and promote the development of data element value. At the same time, it is necessary to regulate data transactions and utilization behaviors, create an orderly and fair market order for data elements, and reduce unreasonable behaviors such as data monopoly, data abuse, and privacy leakage.
Finally, in order to promote the high-quality development of the factor market, it is necessary to improve the management level of data, build a data standardization system, establish a data quality management system, and conduct differentiated management of data. As important subjects of the data market, countries, enterprises and industries should Improve its own data management capabilities, standardize data products and data behaviors in the entire data life cycle, and promote the improvement of data governance.
(The author is co-director and researcher of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Center of Zhejiang University International Business School; member of the Information and Communication Economy Expert Committee of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology)