Deputy Minister Andreana Atanasova: Data is the most valuable resource for both businesses and public sector

Big data has huge potential to provide competitive advantages for companies in all sectors of the economy as well as to develop new quality services in the public sectors. This was stated by Deputy Minister of Transport, Information Technology and Communications Andreana Atanasova during a conference on the role of data and new technologies in the future of organizations. She emphasized that the rapid development of the economy is based on new products and services based on data, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and 5G.

According to the international analytics companies, in 2020, data in the world is expected to exceed 40 trillion, said Andreana Atanasova. In her words this is twice as much as in 2018. “It is an interesting fact that 90% of this complex information has been created in the last two years. Therefore, data is considered to be the most valuable resource, shifting the importance of oil," said the Deputy Minister, adding that despite this huge growth, only 0.5% of all data is processed. Among the main reasons for this are the speed of change in this sector and the   significant volumes of information.

This trend is related to new legal problems, the legal regulation regarding access and re-use of data, as well as their protection, the Deputy Minister noted. “Therefore the European legal framework provides rules for data protection and their free movement within the EU Digital Single Market. It gives people greater control over the use of their personal data and a level playing field for businesses. The Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications synchronizes the Bulgarian legislation with the European norms and is actively working on the preparation of the future EC regulations in this field” Andreana Atanasova concluded.