espacios de datos

As technology and connectivity have advanced in recent years, we have entered a new era in which data never sleeps and the amount of data circulating is greater than ever. Today, we could say that we live enclosed in a sphere surrounded by data and this has made us more and more dependent on it. On the other hand, we have also gradually become both producers and collectors of data.

The term datasphere has historically been used to define the set of all the information existing in digital spaces, also including other related concepts such as data flows and the platforms involved. But this concept has been developing and gaining more and more relevance in parallel with the growing weight of data in our society today, becoming an important concept in defining the future of the relationship between technology and society.

In the early days of the digital era we could consider that we lived in our own data bubbles that we fed little by little throughout our lives until we ended up totally immersed in the data of the online world, where the distinction between the real and the virtual is increasingly irrelevant. Today we live in a society that is interconnected through data and also through algorithms that link us and establish relationships between us. All that data we share more or less consciously no longer affects only ourselves as individuals, but can also have its effect on the rest of society, even in sometimes totally unpredictable ways - like a digital version of the butterfly effect.

Governance models that are based on working with data and its relationship to people, as if it were simply isolated instances that we can work with individually, will therefore no longer serve us well in this new environment.

The need for a systems-based approach to data

Today, that relatively simple concept of the data sphere has evolved into a complete, highly interconnected and complex digital ecosystem - made up of a wide range of data and technologies - that we inhabit and that affects the way we live our lives. It is a system in which data has value only in the context of its relationship with other data, with people and with the rules that govern those relationships.

Effective management of this new ecosystem will therefore require a better understanding of how the different components of the datasphere relate to each other, how data flows through these components, and what the appropriate rules will be needed to make this interconnected system work.

Data as an active component of the system

In a systems-based approach, data is considered as an active component within the ecosystem. This means that data is no longer just static information, but also has the capacity to influence the functioning of the ecosystem itself and will therefore be an additional component to be considered for the effective management of the ecosystem.

For example, data can be used to fine-tune the functioning of algorithms, improving the accuracy and efficiency of artificial intelligence and machine learning systems. Similarly, it could also be used to adjust the way decisions are made and policies implemented in different sectors, such as healthcare, education and security.

The data sphere and the evolution of data governance

It will therefore be necessary to explore new collective data governance frameworks that consider all elements of the ecosystem in their design, controlling how information is accessed, used and protected across the data sphere.

This could ensure that data is used securely, ethically and responsibly for the whole ecosystem and not just in individual or isolated cases. For example, some of the new data governance tools that have been experimented with for some time now and can help us to manage the data sphere collectively are data commons or digital data assets, data trusts, data cooperatives, data collaboratives or data collaborations, among others.

The future of the data sphere

The data sphere will continue to grow and evolve in the coming years, driven once again by new technological advances and the increasing connectivity and ubiquity of systems. It will be important for governments and organisations to keep abreast of these changes and adapt their data governance and management strategies accordingly through robust regulatory frameworks, accompanied by ethical guidelines and responsible practices that ensure that the benefits that data exploitation promises us can finally be realised while minimising risks.

In order to adequately address these challenges, and thus harness the full potential of the data sphere for positive change and for the common good, it will be essential to move away from thinking of data as something we can treat in isolation and to adopt a systems-based approach that recognises the interconnected nature of data and its impact on society as a whole.

Today, we could consider data spaces, which the European Commission has been developing for some time now as a key part of its new data strategy, as precisely a logical evolution of the data sphere concept adapted to the particular needs of our time and acting on all components of the ecosystem simultaneously: technical, functional, operational, legal and business.

Content prepared by Carlos Iglesias, Open data Researcher and consultant, World Wide Web Foundation.

The contents and views reflected in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author.

Last March 13th, a session of the Mobility Working Group of the Gaia-X Spain Hub was held, addressing the main challenges of the sector regarding projects related to data sharing and exploitation. The session, which took place at the Technical School of Civil Engineers of the Polytechnic University of Madrid, allowed attendees to learn firsthand about the main challenges of the sector, as well as some of the cutting-edge data projects in the mobility industry. The event was also a meeting point where ideas and reflections were shared among key actors in the sector.

The session began with a presentation from the Ministry of Transport, Mobility, and Urban Agenda, which highlighted the great importance of the National Access Point for Multimodal Transport, a European project that allows all information on passenger transport services in the country to be centralized in a single national point, with the aim of providing the foundation for driving the development of future mobility services.

Next, the Data Office of the State Secretariat for Artificial Intelligence (SEDIA) provided their vision of the Data Spaces development model and the design principles of such spaces aligned with European values. The importance of business networks based on data ecosystems, the intersectoral nature of the Mobility industry, and the significant role of open data in the sector's data spaces were highlighted.

Next, use cases were presented by Vicomtech, Amadeus, i2CAT, and the Alcobendas City Council, which allowed attendees to learn firsthand about some examples of technology use for data sharing projects (both data spaces and data lakes).

Finally, an initial study by the i2CAT Foundation, FACTUAL Consulting, and EIT Urban Mobility on the basic components of future mobility data spaces in Spain was presented. The study, which can be downloaded here in Spanish, addresses the potential of mobility data spaces for the Spanish market. Although it focuses on Spain, it takes a national and international research approach, framed in the European context to establish standards, develop the technical components that enable data spaces, the first flagship projects, and address common challenges to achieve milestones in sustainable mobility in Europe.

The presentations used in the session are available at this link.

The European Commission's 'European Data Strategy' states that the creation of a single market for shared data is key. In this strategy, the Commission has set as one of its main objectives the promotion of a data economy in line with European values of self-determination in data sharing (sovereignty), confidentiality, transparency, security and fair competition.

Common data spaces at European level are a fundamental resource in the data strategy because they act as enablers for driving the data economy. Indeed, pooling European data in key sectors, fostering data circulation and creating collective and interoperable data spaces are actions that contribute to the benefit of society.

Although data sharing environments have existed for a long time, the creation of data spaces that guarantee EU values and principles is an issue. Developing enabling legislative initiatives is not only a technological challenge, but also one of coordination among stakeholders, governance, adoption of standards and interoperability.

To address a challenge of this magnitude, the Commission plans to invest close to €8 billion by 2027 in the deployment of Europe's digital transformation. Part of the project includes the promotion of infrastructures, tools, architectures and data sharing mechanisms. For this strategy to succeed, a data space paradigm that is embedded in the industry needs to be developed, based on the fulfilment of European values. This data space paradigm will act as a de facto technology standard and will advance social awareness of the possibilities of data, which will enable the economic return on the investments required to create it.

In order to make the data space paradigm a reality, from the convergence of current initiatives, the European Commission has committed to the development of the Simpl project.

What exactly is Simpl?

Simpl is a €150 million project funded by the European Commission's Digital Europe programme with a three-year implementation period. Its objective is to provide society with middleware for building data ecosystems and cloud infrastructure services that support the European values of data sovereignty, privacy and fair markets.

The Simpl project consists of the delivery of 3 products:

• Simpl-Open: Middleware itself. This is a software solution to create ecosystems of data services (data and application sharing) and cloud infrastructure services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, etc). This software must include agents enabling connection to the data space, operational services and brokerage services (catalogue, vocabulary, activity log, etc.). The result should be delivered under an open source licence and an attempt will be made to build an open source community to ensure its evolution.
• Simpl-Labs: Infrastructure for creating test bed environments so that interested users can test the latest version of the software in self-service mode. This environment is primarily intended for data space developers who want to do the appropriate technical testing prior to a deployment.
• Simpl-Live: Deployments of Simpl-open in production environments that will correspond to sectorial spaces contemplated in the Digital Europe programme. In particular, the deployment of data spaces managed by the European Commission itself (Health, Procurement, Language) is envisaged.

The project is practically oriented and aims to deliver results as soon as possible. It is therefore intended that, in addition to supplying the software, the contractor will provide a laboratory service for user testing. The company developing Simpl will also have to adapt the software for the deployment of common European data spaces foreseen in the Digital Europe programme.

The Gaia-X partnership is considered to be the closest in its objectives to the Simpl project, so the outcome of the project should strive for the reuse of the components made available by Gaia-X. 

For its part, the Data Space Support Center, which involves the main European initiatives for the creation of technological frameworks and standards for the construction of data spaces, will have to define the middleware requirements by means of specifications, architectural models and the selection of standards.

Simpl's preparatory work was completed in May 2022, setting out the scope and technical requirements of the project which have been the subject of detail in the currently open contractual process. The tender was launched on 24 February 2023. All information is available on TED eTendering, including how to ask questions about the tendering process. The deadline for applications is 24 April 2023 at 17:00 (Brussels time).

Simpl expects to have a minimum viable platform published in early 2024. In parallel, and as soon as possible, the open test environment (Simpl-Labs) will be made available for interested parties to experiment. This will be followed by the progressive integration of different use cases, helping to tailor Simpl to specific needs, with priority being given to cases otherwise funded under the Europe DIGITAL work programme.

In conclusion, Simpl is the European Commission's commitment to the deployment and interoperability of the different sectoral data space initiatives, ensuring alignment with the specifications and requirements emanating from the Data Space Support Center and, therefore, with the convergence process of the different European initiatives for the construction of data spaces (Gaia-X, IDSA, Fiware, BDVA).

Gaia-X represents an innovative paradigm for linking data more closely to the technological infrastructure underneath, so as to ensure the transparency, origin and functioning of these resources. This model allows us to deploy a sovereign and transparent data economy, which respects European fundamental rights, and which in Spain will take shape around the sectoral data spaces (C12.I1 and C14.I2 of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan). These data spaces will be aligned with the European regulatory framework, as well as with governance and instruments designed to ensure interoperability, and on which to articulate the sought-after single data market.

In this sense, Gaia-X interoperability nodes, or Gaia-X Digital Clearing House (GXDCH), aim to offer automatic validation services of interoperability rules to developers and participants of data spaces. The creation of such nodes was announced at the Gaia-X Summit 2022 in Paris last November. The Gaia-X architecture, promoted by the Gaia-X European Association for Data & Cloud AISBL, has established itself as a promising technological alternative for the creation of open and transparent ecosystems of data sets and services.

These ecosystems, federated by nature, will serve to develop the data economy at scale. But in order to do so, a set of minimum rules must be complied with to ensure interoperability between participants. Compliance with these rules is precisely the function of the GXDCH, serving as an "anchor" to deploy certified market services. Therefore, the creation of such a node in Spain is a crucial element for the deployment of federated data spaces at national level, which will stimulate development and innovation around data in an environment of respect for data sovereignty, privacy, transparency and fair competition.

The GXDCH is defined as a node where operational services of an ecosystem compliant with the Gaia-X interoperability rules are provided. Operational services" should be understood as services that are necessary for the operation of a data space, but are not in themselves data sharing services, data exploitation applications or cloud infrastructures. Gaia-X defines six operational services, of which at least two must be part of the mandatory nodes hosting the GXDCHs:

Mandatory services

• Gaia-X Registry: Defined as an immutable, non-repudiable, distributed database with code execution capabilities. Typically it would be a blockchain infrastructure supporting a decentralised identity service ('Self Sovereign Identity') in which, among others, the list of Trust Anchors or other data necessary for the operation of identity management in Gaia-X is stored.
• Gaia-X Compliance Service or Gaia-X Compliance Service: Belongs to the so-called Gaia-X Federation Services and its function is to verify compliance with the minimum interoperability rules defined by the Gaia-X Association (e.g. the Trust Framework).

Optional services

• Self-Descriptions (SDs) or Wizard Edition Service: SDs are verifiable credentials according to the standard defined by the W3C by means of which both the participants of a Gaia-X ecosystem and the products made available by the providers describe themselves. The aforementioned compliance service consists of validating that the SDs comply with the interoperability standards. The Wizard is a convenience service for the creation of Self-Descriptions according to pre-defined schemas.
• Catalogue: Storage service of the service offer available in the ecosystem for consultation.
• e-Wallet: For the management of verifiable credentials (SDs) by participants in a system based on distributed identities.
• Notary Service: Service for issuing verifiable credentials signed by accreditation authorities (Trust Anchors).

What is the Gaia-X Compliance Service (i.e. Compliance Service)?

The Gaia-X Compliance Service belongs to the so-called Gaia-X Federation Services and its function is to verify compliance with the minimum interoperability rules defined by the Gaia-X Association. Gaia-X calls these minimum interoperability rules (Trust Framework). It should be noted that the establishment of the Trust Framework is one of the differentiating contributions of the Gaia-X technology framework compared to other solutions on the market. But the objective is not just to establish interoperability standards, but to create a service that is operable and, as far as possible, automated, that validates compliance with the Trust Framework. This service is the Gaia-X Compliance Service.

The key element of these rules are the so-called "Self-Descriptions" (SDs). SDs are verifiable credentials according to the standard defined by the W3C by which both the participants of a data space and the products made available by the providers describe themselves. The Gaia-X Compliance service validates compliance with the Trust Framework by checking the SDs from the following points of view:

• Format and syntax of the SDs
• Validation of the SDs schemas (vocabulary and ontology)
• Validation of the cryptography of the signatures of the issuers of the SDs
• Attribute consistency
• Attribute value veracity.

Once the Self-Descriptions have been validated, the compliance service operator issues a verifiable credential that attests to compliance with interoperability standards, providing confidence to ecosystem participants. Gaia-X AISBL provides the necessary code to implement the Compliance Service and authorises the provision of the service to trusted entities, but does not directly operate the service and therefore requires the existence of partners to carry out this task.

The Spanish Hub of Gaia-X (Gaia-X Hub Spain), a non-profit association whose aim is to accelerate Europe's capacity in data sharing and digital sovereignty, seeks to create a community around data for different sectors of the economy, thus promoting an environment conducive to the creation of sectoral data spaces. Framed within the Spain Digital 2026 strategy and with the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan as a roadmap for Spain's digital transformation, the objective of the hub is to promote the development of innovative solutions based on data and artificial intelligence, while contributing to boosting the competitiveness of our country's companies.

The hub is organized into different working groups, with a specific one dedicated to analyzing the challenges and opportunities of data sharing and exploitation spaces in the tourism sector. Tourism is one of the key productive sectors in the Spanish economy, reaching a volume of 12.2% of the national GDP.

Tourism, given its ecosystem of public and private participants of different sizes and levels of technological maturity, constitutes an optimal environment to contrast the benefits of these federated data ecosystems. Thanks to them, the extraction of value from non-traditional data sources is facilitated, with high scalability, and ensuring robust conditions of security, privacy, and thus data sovereignty.

Thus, with the aim of producing the first X-ray of this dataspace in Spain, the Data Office, in collaboration with the Spanish Hub of Gaia-X, has developed the report 'X-ray of the Tourism Dataspace in Spain', a document that seeks to summarize and highlight the current status of the design of this dataspace, the different opportunities for the sector, and the main challenges that must be overcome to achieve its deployment, offering a roadmap for its construction and deployment.

Why is a tourism data space necessary?

If something became clear after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that tourism is an interdependent activity with other industries, so when it was paused, sectors such as mobility, logistics, health, agriculture, automotive, or food, among others, were also affected.

Situations like the one mentioned above highlight the possibilities offered by data sharing between sectors, as they can help improve decision-making. However, achieving this in the tourism sector is not an easy task since deploying a data space for this sector requires coordinated efforts among the different parts of society involved.

Thus, the objective and challenge is to create intelligent "spaces" capable of providing a context of security and trust that promotes the exchange and combination of data. In this way, and based on the added value generated by data, it would be possible to solve some of the existing problems in the sector and create new strategies focused on better understanding the tourist and, therefore, improving their travel experience.

The creation of these data sharing and exploitation spaces will bring significant benefits to the sector, as it will facilitate the creation of more personalized offers, products, and services that provide an enhanced and tailored experience to meet the needs of customers, thus improving the capacity to attract tourists. In addition, it will promote a better understanding of the sector and informed decision-making by both public and private organizations, which can more easily detect new business opportunities.

Challenges of security and data governance to take advantage of digital tourism market opportunities

One of the main obstacles to developing a sectoral data space is the lack of trust in data sharing, the absence of shared data models, or the insufficient interoperability standards for efficient data exchange between different existing platforms and actors in the value chain.

Moving to more specific challenges, the tourism sector also faces the need to combine B2B data spaces (sharing between private companies and organizations) with C2B and G2B spaces (sharing between users and companies, and between the public sector and companies, respectively). If we add to this the ideal need to land the tourism sector's datasets at the national, regional, and local levels, the challenge becomes even greater.

To design a sector data space, it is also important to take into account the differences in data quality among the aforementioned actors. Due to the lack of specific standards, there are differences in the level of granularity and quality of data, semantics, as well as disparity in formats and licenses, resulting in a disconnected data landscape.

Furthermore, it is essential to understand the demands of the different actors in the industry, which can only be achieved by listening and taking notes on the needs present at the different levels of the industry. Therefore, it is important to remember that tourism is a social activity whose focus should not be solely on the destination. The success of a tourism data space will also rely on the ability to better understand the customer and, consequently, offer services tailored to their demands to improve their experience and incentivize them to continue traveling.

Thus, as stated in the report prepared by the Data Office, in collaboration with the Spanish hub of Gaia-X, it is interesting to redirect the focus and shift it from the destination to the tourist, in line with the discovery and generation of use cases by SEGITTUR. While it is true that focusing on the destination has helped develop digital platforms that have driven competitiveness, efficiency, and tourism strategy, a strategy that pays the same attention to the tourist would allow for expanding and improving the available data catalogs.

Measuring the factors that condition tourists' experience during their visit to our country allows for optimizing their satisfaction throughout the entire travel circuit, while also contributing to creating increasingly personalized marketing campaigns, based on the analysis of the interests of different market segments.

Current status of the construction of the Spanish Tourism data space and next steps

The lack of maturity of the market in the creation of data spaces as a solution makes an experimental approach necessary, both for the consolidation of the technological components and for the validation of the different facets (soft infrastructure) present in the data spaces.

Currently, the Tourism Working Group of the Spanish Gaia-X Hub is working on the definition of the key elements of the tourism data space, based on use cases aligned with the sector's challenges. The objective is to answer some key questions, using existing knowledge in the field of data spaces:

• What are the key characteristics of the tourism environment and what business problems can be addressed?
• What data-oriented models can be worked on in different use cases?
• What requirements exist and what governance model is necessary? What types of participants should be considered?
• What business, legal, operational, functional, and technological components are necessary?
• What reference technology architecture can be used?
• What development, integration, testing, and technology deployment processes can be employed?

The promotion of the so-called data economy is one of the main priorities on which the European Union, in general, and Spain, in particular, are currently working. Having a single digital market for data exchange is one of the keys to achieving this momentum among the Member States, and data spaces come into play for this purpose.

Data Spaces Business Alliance (DSBA)

A data space is an ecosystem capable of realising the voluntary sharing of data among its participants, while respecting their sovereignty over it, i.e. being able to set the conditions for its access and use. The DSBA, founded in 2021, is composed of the main actors in the definition of standards, models and technological frameworks for the construction and operation of data spaces. Specifically, the alliance is composed of the Big Data Value Association (BDVA), the FIWARE Foundation and the Gaia-X European Association for Data and Cloud AISBL and the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA). The purpose of the alliance is to agree on a common technological framework that avoids technological fragmentation of the activity, as well as harmonisation in messaging and dissemination activities.

Technical Convergence Discussion Document

On the technological side, the DSBA published in September 2022 a first approximation of the desired technological convergence.

The document technically analyses the anchor points for creating trusted data spaces, federated catalogues and shared markets, and the ability to define data use policies (based on the use of a common language). This ability to share while respecting the sovereignty of the data owner is what makes these spaces novel and truly disruptive, offering for the first time technical elements with which to control the risks associated with information sharing.

The document explains, step by step and from a purely technical perspective, the actions to be addressed by each of the identified roles, with the purpose of guiding potential scenarios that could occur in reality.

To achieve technical convergence, the partnership agreed on the development of a minimum viable framework (MVF) based on three pillars:

• Interoperability in data exchange through the use of the standard NGSI-LD data exchange protocol/API and the extended Smart Data Models for the adoption of the information model defined by the IDS architecture.
• Sovereignty and trust in data exchange through the adoption of a decentralised model (Self-Sovereign Identity) as proposed by Gaia-X (with its Trust Framework) that would use the DLT (Distributed Ledger Technologies) promoted by the European Commission (EBSI). The result will be a trust environment compatible with the EU's eIDAS 2.0 regulation.
• Value creation (brokering) services consisting of a decentralised data catalogue and trading services based on TM Forum standards.

The alliance believes that this MVF would be a good starting point from which to work towards the desired technological convergence, counting and reusing parts of the current solutions provided by the different suppliers.

Example of a public data marketplace

The paper gives the example of a data service provider offering its service in a public data marketplace, so that consumers can easily access this offer. In addition, providers can also delegate access to their users to modify attributes of the service they contract.

This is an example that can be seen in detail in the document, which is interesting because different authentication systems, security and access policies and, in short, different systems that must interoperate with each other come into play.

Additionally, an example of integration between the Data Marketplace and a data catalogue is presented using the approach followed by the European Horizon 2020 project 'Digital Open Marketplace Ecosystem' (DOME). In this way, offers are created in the shared catalogue and can be subsequently consulted following the defined access policies.

The future of the DSBA

The DSBA considers that the aforementioned MVF is only the first step towards the convergence of the different existing architectures and technologies in the construction of data spaces. The next steps of the alliance will take into account the roles assigned to each of the participants. More specifically:

• IDSA: Develops data space architectures and standards. In particular, a model for connectors to ensure sovereign data sharing in a scalable way.

• Gaia-X: Develops and deploys an architecture, a governance model according to business specifications for sectoral data spaces, as well as a toolkit (Gaia-X Federation Services toolkit) to instantiate interoperability, composability and transparency of infrastructure and cloud data services.

• FIWARE: With a technology stack that comes from the world of Digital Twins, the community develops software components that allow to implement the construction of data spaces.

The DSBA has also set itself the following priority objectives:

• The compatibility of the IDS architecture with an identity management mechanism based on decentralised identifiers.
• The integration of a federated catalogue such as the one proposed with the metadata broker proposed in the IDS architecture.
• The definition of a common vocabulary.
• Advancing jointly with the work of the Data Space Support Center (a programme funded by the European Commission, where these associations play a leading role), as well as with the standardisation efforts based on the EC's Smart Middleware Platform (SIMPL) project.

Content prepared by Juan Mañes, expert in Data Governance.

The contents and views expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author.

On 20 October, Madrid hosted a new edition of the Data Management Summit Spain, an international summit that this year also took place in Italy (7 July) and Latam (20 September). The event brought together CiOs, CTOs, CDOs, Business Intelligence Officers and Data Scientists in charge of implementing emerging technologies in order to solve new technological challenges aligned with new business opportunities.

This event was preceded by a prologue held the previous evening, in collaboration with DAMA Spain and the Data Office. This was a session aimed exclusively at representatives of different levels of public administration and focused on open data and information sharing between administrations. During the day, participants discussed the transformative role of data and how its intensive use and enhancement are essential to achieve the digital transformation of public administrations.

As was mentioned in the session, data plays an essential role in the development of disruptive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, and is a differential factor when it comes to launching an industrial and technological revolution that allows for the consolidation of a fairer, more inclusive digital economy in line with the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda. A true data economy with the vocation to nurture the development of two key and strategic processes for the reconstruction of our country: the digital transformation and the ecological transition.

Data spaces and open data, key to achieving data-driven government

The institutional opening was given by Carlos Alonso, Director of the Data Office Division. His speech focused on highlighting how the achievement of a data-oriented administration, an inseparable part of its digital transformation process, depends on the development of public sector data spaces, which enable data sharing with sovereignty and its large-scale exploitation. Data is a public good, to be preserved and processed in order to implement quality public services and policies. The aim is to achieve a data-driven, citizen-centred, open, transparent, inclusive, participatory and egalitarian administration, ensuring ethical, secure and responsible use of data.

In this process of designing public and private sector data spaces, open data is fundamental, as Carlos Alonso highlighted during his speech: "Data spaces are major consumers and generators of open data, and their availability must be ensured. That is, it is necessary to establish certain service level agreements to ensure access".

Sharing experiences between administrations

After this institutional opening, the conference addressed the opportunity provided by the creation of spaces for sharing and exploiting data in public administrations, and allowed for the dissemination of different data-related projects by representatives of the different administrative levels, including autonomous communities and local entities.

Andreu Francisco, Director General of the Localret consortium, formed by the local administrations of Catalonia for the development of telecommunications services and networks and the application of ICT, presented a digital metamodel, which aims to structure the technological architecture and services required in a digital city. It is a comprehensive solution that can be implemented in different territories and personalised according to the singularities of each city, making it easier for the inhabitants of the 877 Catalan municipalities to develop professionally and personally.

César Priol, Director General of Digitalisation and Citizen Services, of Bizkaiko Foru Aldundia (Basque Country) shared his experience in the creation of the Data Office, highlighting the importance of self-organising on an organisational, regulatory and legal level in order to have the capacity to transform not only the organisation, but also the territory with data.

Magda Lorente, Head of the Local Information Systems Assistance Section, and Sara Aguilar, Head of the Service of the Official Gazette of the Province of Barcelona and other Official Publications of the Barcelona Provincial Council, spoke of good practices in data management. Magda Lorente highlighted the importance of the Diputacions becoming data-oriented in order to assume their relevant role in the promotion of municipal data governance. According to a study carried out by the Diputació de Barcelona, which will be published at the end of November, 85% of municipalities could be left out of artificial intelligence and intelligent administration because their technical capacities do not allow them to materialise the necessary data orientation.

Sara Aguilar, for her part, presented an example of how the administrations are consolidating the way in decision-making based on quality data: the CIDO, a search engine for official information and documentation. This tool was created in 2000 with the aim of bringing government information closer to citizens in a user-friendly way. It provides access, for example, to more than 2,600 selection processes with open calls for applications and 1,600 open subsidies, thanks to the open data offered by the different municipalities of Catalonia. CIDO is based on a tag reader model and the use of artificial intelligence algorithms, which classify the information collected from the municipalities. They have more than 2 million ads, structured and documented open data that they serve through an API that can be integrated into any platform.

Roundtables and group dynamics to promote debate

During the course of the day, attendees were able to participate in different dynamics for the exchange of experiences. The first dynamic focused on open data and the second on interoperability.

In addition, two round tables were held, which allowed the subject to be approached from different points of view:

• The first round table, moderated by Carlos Alonso, focused on the challenges and barriers to data exchange in the public sector. Current methodologies, specifications and practices related to the processing of information, in order to achieve a fluid and continuous exchange of data between administrations, industrial sectors and citizens, were projected on a larger scale. The round table was attended by: Carlos Alonso, Jose Antonio Eusamio (General Secretariat for Digital Government), César Priol (Vizcaya Provincial Council), Miguel Angel Martinez Vidal (INE) and Magda Lorente.
• The second round table focused on how to accelerate the adoption of Open Linked Data in the public administration domain, moderated in this case by Oscar Alonso (IBM Consulting & DAMA Spain). Participants included Sara Aguilar (Barcelona Provincial Council), Oscar Alonso (DAMA Spain & IBM), Sonia Castro (datos.gob.es), Juan José Alonso (Orange) and Olga Quiros (ASEDIE). The conversation revolved around EU initiatives, such as the Data Governance Act, which are acting as a turning point in data policies. The act seeks to establish robust mechanisms to facilitate the re-use of certain categories of protected public sector data, increase trust in data brokering services and promote data altruism across the EU. This highlights how the EU is working to strengthen various data sharing mechanisms to promote the availability of data that can be used to drive advanced applications and solutions in artificial intelligence, personalised medicine, green mobility, smart manufacturing and many other areas. The importance of data ethics was also highlighted during the debate.

Materials available on the day

If you missed the session, the video is available on Youtube. The recording of the summit on the 20th has also been made public, a session that had a more business-oriented approach, with expert presentations and group dynamics focused on data governance, data quality, master data and data architecture, among other topics. Photos from the event are also available.

In addition, interviews with some of the speakers have been published on the summit's website, allowing a deeper insight into the projects they are carrying out.

On 25 October, the workshop "Use cases of the Spanish Tourism data space" was held, with the aim of starting the design and deployment of the first interoperable Tourism dataspace at European level, built under the Gaia-X seal.

This activity, organised by the Data Office in collaboration with the Secretary of State for Tourism, through SEGITTUR, is part of the public-private collaboration model for the constitution of sectoral data spaces promoted by the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation. The event is a continuation of the process of revitalisation of national data spaces that began with the event "Governmental impulse to a data-driven reindustrialisation - Spanish Tourism Data Space", and is part of the actions carried out by the Government of Spain to create the legal, political, technological and funding environment conducive to the deployment of the data economy, as detailed in the Digital Spain 2026 strategy. This action is aligned with the European scene.

Why a tourism data space?

Data is a vital element in the development and sustainability of the tourism sector. Enabling its proper valorisation reinforces the already significant contribution of the sector to the national economy. The place to realise this latent value is the data space.

According to their European meaning, data spaces are ecosystems where different actors share data voluntarily and securely. In this way, the sharing of data between participants is realised while respecting the principles of self-determination in data sharing (sovereignty), privacy, transparency, security and fair competition.

Tourism, given its ecosystem of public and private participants of different sizes and technological maturity, is an optimal environment in which to test the benefits of these federated data ecosystems. They facilitate the extraction of value from non-traditional data sources, with high scalability, and guaranteeing in any case robust conditions of security, privacy and therefore data sovereignty.

The high availability of tourism data brings great benefits to the sector, as it facilitates the creation of more personalised offers, products and services that provide an improved experience tailored to the needs of customers, thus improving the ability to attract tourists. It also fosters greater knowledge of the sector and informed decision-making by both public and private organisations, which can more easily identify new business opportunities.

An eminently practical workshop

During the workshop, the more than one hundred participants, from both the tourism and technology sectors, tackled the detailed characterisation of different data sharing use cases that could satisfy specific business needs in the tourism sector. The participants were organised around different working groups considering the maturity of the use cases proposed, seeking to encourage the variety of profiles and the grouping of interests. The different work dynamics were carried out in accordance with the methodology for the discovery and design of use cases developed by the Data Office, allowing the validation of their content and their scalability to the rest of the sectoral data spaces to be created.

During the final conclusions of the conference, the Data Office emphasised the central role of data spaces as a place to create new business opportunities within the tourism sector. It was also highlighted that the synergies derived from data sharing go beyond the sum of individual data, and investments, duly supported by public-private collaboration, must be seen beyond the short term and need to be backed by management. The problem to be solved is a business problem and the solution is not exclusively technological. Simple solutions must be sought that are easy to adopt and use, with robust, agile and simple deployment that do not generate barriers to entry for small participants. Taking advantage of the current technological, economic, political and social situation, it is possible to develop a tourism sector that is data-oriented, sustainable, generates social value and is inclusive.

In this link you can see the presentation of the workshop, which includes, among others, methodological aspects for the creation of data spaces, such as the characteristics or the elements to be considered.Below you can also access several infographics:

• Tourism Data Spaces and the Gaia-X Model
• Use case sheet for data sharing
•  Identification and proposal of use cases in tourism
• Elements involved in the data sharing process

Many organisations and administrations have found in open data a transformational pillar on which to exercise the strategy towards the data culture. Having access to data in a structured way is the basis for new business models, as well as for new initiatives aimed at citizens in different fields of action.

However, realising the full potential of open data requires a platform capable of making this data available to third parties while ensuring its quality, understanding, privacy and security.

In this context, the book “Designing Data Spaces”, includes a chapter by Fabian Kirstein and Vincent Bohlen, which proposes the use of the IDS-RAM architecture proposed by the International Data Spaces (IDS) for the development of open data ecosystems. It provides a proof of concept on the feasibility of the IDS architecture for public data spaces with the aim of achieving a solid foundation for building and maintaining interoperable open data ecosystems capable of addressing existing challenges.

The following is a summary of the views gathered in the chapter.

Open data ecosystems

Data spaces are ecosystems where different actors share data voluntarily and securely, following common governance, organisational, regulatory and technical mechanisms.

IDSA (International Data Spaces Association) was created in 2016, with the aim of boosting the global digital economy, through a secure and sovereign system of data exchange in which all participants can obtain the maximum value from their data. It is a coalition of more than 130 international companies with representation in more than 20 countries around the world.

Among other initiatives, it promotes an architectural reference model called IDS-RAM, which aims to facilitate the exchange of data to optimise its value, but without losing control. It offers several approaches whose applicability can be understood in the context of both private and open data, as it is based on metadata repositories for sharing information. That is, the data remain under the control of its owners and the standardised metadata are centrally managed for sharing.

The creation of data spaces brings with it a number of risks to be addressed, both from the consumer's and the provider's point of view. Data providers focus on legal compliance, through issues such as data ownership. Although common standards exist for aspects such as metadata description - the World Wide Web Consortium is no stranger to the problem and therefore proposed several years ago its Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT), a standard for describing data catalogues - the truth is that interoperability is sometimes far from its greatest potential. This is because there is sometimes incomplete metadata, the quality is poor, data is outdated, there are difficulties in accessing data and interoperating, and so on.

The applicability of IDS-RAM in open data environments

IDS offers an approach based on guaranteeing data sovereignty to providers, facilitating data exchange and addressing the concerns of both consumers and providers.

The concepts and technologies underlying open data and IDS-RAM are very similar. Both initiatives rely on metadata repositories to share information about the availability and accessibility of data. These repositories store metadata, without the need to transfer the actual data. Therefore, both concepts follow the principles of decentralisation and transfer of metadata to and from central information access points. The actual data remains under the control of the data publisher's infrastructure until a user requests it. In addition, the IDS information model is based on the principles of Linked Data and DCAT. This makes it a system that is easily compatible with open data portals, driving interoperability between data spaces and open data portals.

The architecture proposed by IDS is mainly based on two artefacts, a connector to data sources (Open Data Connector) and a metadata store (Open Data Broker), as shown in the following image extracted from the book "Designing Data Spaces":

• Open Data Connector: adopts the role of open data provider. Each publishing entity applies an instance of the connector to announce availability and grant access to the data. As it is open data, and therefore public, it is not necessary to apply usage policies or restrictions as strict as in the case of other private data connectors based on this architecture, which allows for easier configuration and management a priori.
• Open Data Broker: the centralised metadata repository fulfils a similar function to that of an open data portal. From this metadata, the portal interface offers functionalities to locate and download the data from the connectors.

This management allows grouping by different application domains, i.e. centralised metadata repositories can be created for sectors such as health or tourism, as well as at municipal, regional, national or international level.

In a data ecosystem such as the one proposed by IDS, the connector informs about available or updated data, and in the metadata repository these are updated accordingly. For this purpose, communication mechanisms based on the IDS information model and the IDS Communication Protocol (IDS Communication Protocol or IDSCP) are used to announce possible changes in data availability. In this way, the availability of up-to-date data is guaranteed.

In open data portals that collect a large number of data sources, accessibility and overall usability depend on the metadata provided by the original data providers. Standards such as DCAT provide a common basis, but IDS offers more stringent specifications in the communication process.

Although it is an interesting proposal, in the context of open data, this approach has not yet been implemented in any space. However, proofs of concept have already been made, as can be seen in the Public Data Space, a showcase available since December 2020 that reproduces how the solution works. Here, connectors display the open data offerings of different data portals in Germany and are registered in a metadata repository.

The following image shows the workflow of an IDS-RAM-based model versus a more traditional approach:

Conclusions

Open data portals provide access to open data from a variety of providers. The overall usability of these portals depends to some extent on the discoverability of the data, which in turn depends on the quality of their metadata.

To counteract the problems of unavailable data or dead links that sometimes occur in open data environments, portals periodically collect the publisher's data catalogues and perform availability checks. In the IDS-RAM-based open data ecosystem, the connector informs the broker about available or updated datasets. The 'pull' accountability approach that is common in the typical open data environments is reversed to a 'push' approach in the IDS ecosystem. This approach focuses on the responsibility of the publisher to maintain the data supply and also presents new possibilities to control its dissemination. Using IDS-RAM, the publisher chooses which metadata broker it signs up to, giving it greater sovereignty over their data.

For data consumers, this approach can lead to improvements in terms of the ability to find data in a timely manner and reduces fragmentation. Moreover, if open data can be acquired, managed and processed with the same tools and applications that are already applied in industry, the possibilities for integration and reuse multiply.

Content prepared by Juan Mañes, expert in Data Governance, with contributions from the Data Office.

The contents and views expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author.

For a data space to function properly, it is necessary to have sufficient actors to cover a set of roles and a set of technological components. These elements enable a common governance framework to be established for secure data sharing, ensuring the sovereignty of the participants over their own data. This concept, data sovereignty, can be defined as the ability of the data owner to set the policies for the use and access of the data to be exchanged, and is the core element of a data space.

In this sense, the EU-funded report "Design Principles for Data Spaces" (April 2021) provides the fundamentals that data spaces should follow in order to act in accordance with EU values: decentralisation, openness, transparency, sovereignty and interoperability. The report was prepared by experts from 25 different companies, thus giving a consensus view with industry.

The following is a summary of some of the main contributions of the document, taking as a reference the article "Elements of a data space" published in the Boletic magazine of the Professional Association of Information Systems and Technologies. In this article, the elements of a data space are divided into two categories:

• Roles and domains
• Fundamental components

Roles

In a data space we can find different participants, each of them focused on a specific field of action. This is known as roles:

1. Data providers and data consumers

These are the participants who provide and interact with the data. Within this category there are several roles:

• Data Producer: Generates the data.
• Data Owner: The holder of the rights to access and use the data.
• Data Acquirer or Data Provider: Captures the data and offers it through the data space catalogue.
• Data Consumer: Accesses the data from the catalogue.
• Application Provider: Provides applications that allow working with the data offering added value (e.g. machine learning models, visualisations, cleansing processes, etc.).Intermediaries

2. Intermediaries

In this case we are talking about third parties that offer the services necessary for publishing, searching for resources and registering transactions. Some examples of services offered by intermediaries are:

• Vocabularies and ontologies, which allow information to be systematically organised, categorised or labelled, improving interoperability.
• Application stores, which list the tools offered by application providers, ensuring that they have passed a quality control process.
• Metadata broker services for the publication of a catalogue of resource offerings (data and applications) with as much information as possible.
• Orchestration services, allowing the automation of various activities.
• Clearing house, which allow to keep control of the operations carried out.

3. Technology providers

They provide components for the data space to operate correctly, making it a secure and trusted environment. Examples of these components are the connector - a fundamental element that we will see below -, user management systems or monitoring systems.

Brokerage services and applications do not fall into this category.

4. Data space operators

Focused on the management of the space, they carry out tasks such as the processing of requests or incidents, change control, software maintenance, etc. Among other things, they certify participants, exercise the governance of the data space and define the roadmap of functionalities.

All these roles are not exclusive, and the same user can adopt several roles.

Components of a data space

There are different approaches to the components that a data space should have. One can refer to Gaia-X and/or take as a reference the IDS-RAM architecture model (Reference Architecture model), characterised by an open, reliable and federated architecture for cross-sector data exchange.

In any case, at least the following blocks are necessary for  carrying out the activity in a secure and controlled manner:

1. Components for accessing the data space: Connector

One of the main elements of data spaces is the connector, through which participants access the data space and the data. It is responsible for handling the data according to the usage policies defined by the owner of the access and usage rights, guaranteeing its sovereignty. To prevent malicious manipulation, connectors can be signed by a certificate provided by the data space governance, so as to guarantee their integrity and compliance with the usage rights established by the data owner.

2. Components for intermediation

They allow for the intermediation services mentioned above, the metadata broker, the app store, etc. Of all of them, the most fundamental is the resource catalogue. In addition to a list of the available offer, it is also the tool that allows the resource provider, its characteristics and conditions of use to be located.

3. Components for identity management and secure data exchange

These components ensure the identity of participants and the security of transactions. For this reason, participants are often required to present credentials (e.g. via X.509 certificates).

4. Data space management components

These are tools that allow the data space to operate normally, facilitating daily operations, management of participants (registration, deregistration, revocation, suspension), monitoring of the activity, etc.

How do all these elements interact?

All these roles and components interact with each other. First, the data provider registers its data offering in the catalogue, including relevant metadata such as usage policies. The data consumer searches the catalogue for datasets and applications of interest. Once located, he/she contacts the provider, communicating which resources he wants to acquire. In this process, further negotiation of terms and conditions may take place. Once an agreement is reached, the consumer can download the data.

The transaction must be registered by both the supplier and the consumer.

All these elements (roles, components and processes) allow data sharing in a secure and controlled manner, in a managed environment of trust. The aim is to enable European companies and organisations to exchange information, generating a European data market that will give rise to new products and services of value, boosting the European economy.

Content prepared by the datos.gob.es team.