Canada, like many other countries, wants to be a leader in the digital economy — an economy built on data-driven services and manufacturing. The challenge for Canada is to provide a high-trust data environment, while ensuring that data can easily flow across borders.

This paper uses a wide range of metrics to show that most developing and middle-income countries are not ready or able to provide an environment where their citizens’ personal data is protected and where public data is open and readily accessible.

This paper begins with an overview and then describes how trade in data is different from trade in goods or services. It then examines analogies used to describe data as an input, which can help us understand how data could be regulated.