Joint position paper on the Proposal for a Data Act

On 23 February 2022, the European Commission (hereafter the “Commission”) published its proposal for a Regulation on harmonized rules on fair access to and use of data (hereafter the “Data Act”).

The Data Act is part of the European digital strategy launched by the Commission in 2020 to build a “Europe fit for the Digital Age”. The Data Act aims to remove legal, economic and technical barriers to enable users (businesses and consumers) to share under-used data generated by connected products (Internet of Things) and to favor the development of innovative products and services. The proposal also contains provisions to facilitate data sharing with the Member States public bodies and EU institutions in case of exceptional circumstances (e.g. a public emergency), as well as provisions to facilitate cloud services switching.

Though this initiative and its targets are welcomed, the Chamber of Commerce together with the FEDIL are of the opinion that the means to accomplish the objectives are mostly based on a constraint approach imposing huge burden in terms of process, cost, technique, organisation, administrative and legal obligations, without sufficient safeguards in some respects such as protection of trade secrets.

The joint position of the Chamber of Commerce and the FEDIL on the Proposal for a Data Act is available here.