The EU’s Data Act has entered into force on 11 January, improving access to data in the EU market for individuals and businesses. In recent years, the Internet of Things has fuelled rapid growth in the amount of data out there. The new rules will encourage the use of data and ensure it is shared, stored and processed in full respect of European rules.
Whether you are a citizen or a business, these new rules will improve our lives in numerous ways. For example:
- Prices for aftermarket services and repair of smart devices will be lower. For example, if your smart watch breaks down, you can now request that any repair service, which may be cheaper than the watch manufacturer, gets access to the data. In the past, only the manufacturer could access your data.
- There will be new opportunities to use services relying on access to data. If you have machines from different manufacturers, you can now receive customised advice from a company gathering data from the different machines. Until now, each machine’s data was locked by its manufacturer. This could be useful at home, allowing you to connect your thermostat with your garden sheds.
- Better access to data collected or produced by a device. For example, your bar owner wants to serve better coffee, and the coffeemaker company wants to improve its product. In the past, only the company could access the data produced by the machine to design the next generation of coffeemakers, but the bar owner could not access information such as the temperature of water. The Data Act clarifies that both parties can access all data collected by the machine.
The Data Act also enables the public sector to access and use data held by the private sector to help respond to public emergencies, such as floods and wildfires. It will also protect European businesses from unfair contractual terms in data sharing contracts, so that small businesses can take part more actively in the data market.
The Data Act will start to apply in the EU in 20 months, on 11 September 2025.
