Policy - Forced & Data Localization

Technological innovation has driven growth and revolutionized all economic sectors, creating unimagined goods and services and offering new opportunities for companies large and small. Similarly, information that flows through the internet, or digital data, is critically important to our societies and the global economy. Businesses rely on data for their daily operations, governments use data to make policy decisions, researchers analyze data to solve complex local and global problems, and everyday internet users send and receive data each time they connect, use online applications, send or receive email, or post on social media. The free flow of data across national borders and around the world is a core function of the internet.

ITI leads efforts to inform and engage governments around the world on the importance of seamless data flows and the dangers of forced and data localization policies – measures that impose significant negative impacts on economies by increasing the costs of doing business, diverting trade and investment, distorting markets, undermining security, and discouraging innovation – while working with them to implement more effective options for achieving their public policy objectives.