Data act

European Economic and Social Committee opinion on the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on harmonised rules on fair access to and use of data (Data Act)

Key points

The EESC:

• Welcomes the Data Act Regulation and highlights the need to implement it without any discrimination against people who have difficulty accessing the internet or data.
• Believes that the protection of personal data, digital identity and privacy should be considered fundamental aspects of data governance directly linked to respect for human dignity and fundamental rights. Therefore, traceability, interoperability and multimodality of the various activities of the supply chains are needed to ensure a clear synergy with the Green Deal indicators and the Sustainable Development Goals.
• Considers it important to guarantee respect of safety and ethical standards, multiple and sufficient conditions for data functionality, cybersecurity procedures and the proper storage of data on EU territory, on the assumption that individuals should be in control of the data they generate in accordance with the objectives of strategic autonomy and technological independence.
• Believes that ensuring fair competition and a fair distribution of costs and added value within the data supply chain including all actors is relevant and important.
• Suggests enlarging the scope of the proposed regulation in order to cover all physical products that obtain, generate or collect data concerning their performance, use or environment and that are able to communicate that data via a publicly available electronic communications service.
• Believes that users and data recipients should have unhindered access to data which is essential to the functioning, repairing or servicing of connected products and related services. This would include all raw data and metadata but also other relevant sets of processed, refined or aggregated data.

For more information please contact the INT Section Secretariat