Report Compiled on Trust Required for Promoting Industrial Data Sharing in the Ouranos Ecosystem

1. Background

METI has been promoting the Ouranos Ecosystem initiative as part of the efforts for achieving the Data Free Flow with Trust (DFFT) concept. The initiative aims to encourage companies and industries to interoperate multiple systems and to increase the utilization of data, thereby fortifying enterprise and industrial competitiveness under public-private cooperation while promoting the sharing of data, systems, and businesses.

Toward the realization of secure and trustworthy data sharing and utilization, it is necessary to establish “trust”, which ensures the trustworthiness of data itself and stakeholders. However, the required subjects and levels of trustworthiness differ by the use cases and by the nature of the data concerned. Based on this recognition, it is important to consider the level of trust to be established with the actual needs of companies that share and utilize data in various cases. To this end, METI organized a trust study group for expanding the Ouranos Ecosystem and ensuring interoperability in the ecosystem (hereinafter called “the Study Group”). The Study Group held repeated discussions on the trust required for industrial data sharing.

2. Organization of the meetings of the Study Group

The Study Group is composed of companies engaging in the fields in which industrial data sharing is being promoted (automobiles, chemical substances management, electricity data, rail transportation, communication and financial services) and of experts in the trust and data sharing field. During the period from November 2024 to March 2025, the Study Group met four times in total. For the analysis of trust required for data sharing based on use cases, the Study Group collected information about the data and companies targeted for sharing as well as about data sharing-related risks and trust requirements by using the Data Management Framework for Collaborative Data Utilization announced by METI in 2022. Also, the Study Group analyzed and discussed overseas trends regarding data sharing and trust.

3. Outline of the Report

In the report, based on the results of analysis made and discussions held in the meetings of the Study Group, major risks related to industrial data sharing are categorized into the following three groups: risks related to “Entities (authenticity and identity verification),” related to “Data,” and related to “Data Integration platforms and other factors.”

Among these three, risks related to “Entities (authenticity and identity verification)” commonly exist in all use cases, and for these risks the report indicates that trust might be effectively ensured based on information provided by the government. For risks related to “Data” and “Data Integration platforms and other factors,” the report deems it rational to make individual handling to the subjects and levels required in each use case.

4. Readers of the Report

The report targets a wide range of stakeholders involved with industrial data sharing, including companies working for the establishment of industrial data sharing, developers of the systems that support it, and companies who are data providers and users. It provides companies striving for industrial data sharing with analysis criteria that help them analyze the issues that may relate to trust. METI will continue to make efforts for the promotion of the Ouranos Ecosystem in view of the measures mentioned above.

Related Materials

• The Ouranos Ecosystem Trust Study Group: Full report(PDF:3,757KB)
• The Ouranos Ecosystem Trust Study Group: Outline of the report(PDF:1,126KB)

Related Links

• Ouranos Ecosystem (in Japanese)
• Technical Reference Document Released for Promoting Industrial Data Interoperability in the Ouranos Ecosystem
• Data Management Framework for Collaborative Data Utilization Formulated (in Japanese)

Division in Charge

• Digital Economy Division, Commerce and Information Policy Bureau
• Digital Strategy Office, Commerce and Information Policy Bureau