European Commission wants to build ‘fair and innovative data economy’ with Data Act

The European Commission is proposing a new set of rules to give companies and citizens more control over their data. The proposal focuses, among other things, on smart devices and cloud vendor lock-in.

In the Data Act, the European Commission proposes how industrial and consumer data will be more fairly distributed within the European Union.

Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president of “A Europe Ready for the Digital Age,” said, “We want to give consumers and businesses even more control over what can be done with their data by clarifying who can access it and under what conditions. This is an important digital principle that will help create a robust and fair data economy and guide digital transformation by 2030.”

Extracting potential from industrial data

Within the business context, the European Commission wants to consider how the utility that industrial data can still serve. The Commission states that about 80% of industrial data has no application, while this data could serve services of other parties. Improving this would add 270 billion euros to the European Union’s gross domestic product by 2028.

The contracts SMEs enter into with data processing companies are also coming under scrutiny. The Commission plans to create some rules that protect SMEs from “unfair contract terms imposed by a party with significantly stronger bargaining power. In addition to the rules, SMEs will also be provided with a sample contract that supports fair agreements.

Cloud data processing services get another separate block in the proposal. New rules should make it easier for customers of these types of services to switch providers.

Finally, business data should be passed on to government agencies in emergency situations, the Commission says. Government agencies can thereby make better decisions that “minimize the burden on business.

More say from consumer

Consumers would also gain more control over their own data with the Data Act. The set of rules that would make that possible focus on IoT devices. Think smart watches and smart doorbells. Those devices collect data from users. In the future, this data should be accessible so that users can more easily share it with third parties.