European Commission proposes rules for data access across economic sectors

The Data Act aims to ensure fairness in the digital environment, stimulate a competitive data market, open opportunities for data-driven innovation, and make data more accessible for all. This last building block of the Commission's data strategy will play a key role in the digital transformation, in line with the 2030 digital objectives.

The volume of data is constantly growing, from 33 zettabytes generated in 2018 to 175 zettabytes expected in 2025. The Data Act addresses the legal, economic, and technical issues that lead to data being under-used. The new rules will make more data available for reuse and are expected to create USD 270 billion of additional GDP by 2028.

The Data Act contains measures to allow users of connected devices to gain access to data generated by them, which is often exclusively harvested by manufacturers; measures to rebalance negotiation power for SMEs by preventing abuse of contractual imbalances in data sharing contracts; means for public sector bodies to access and use data held by the private sector that is necessary for exceptional circumstances.

In addition, the Data Act reviews certain aspects of the Database Directive, which was created in the 1990s to protect investments in the structured presentation of data. It clarifies that databases containing data from Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices and objects should not be subject to separate legal protection. This will ensure they can be accessed and used.

Following the Data Governance Act, this proposal is the second main legislative initiative resulting from the February 2020 European strategy for data.

While the Data Governance Act, presented in November 2020 and agreed by co-legislators in November 2021, creates the processes and structures to facilitate data sharing by companies, individuals and the public sector, the Data Act clarifies who can create value from data and under which conditions.