Data Act: a leap into the unknown

Data Act: a leap into the unknown

On 1 February 2023, FEM co-signed a joint industry statement on the European Commission legislative proposal for a Data Act. The statement warns against the negative impact of the Data Act as it stands. It calls on the European Parliament and Council to recognise the importance of data in contributing to the European economy by providing a regulatory framework that gives stability, clarity, and certainty.

The Data Act should in particular provide the following:

  1. Protection of trade secrets, privacy, and security
  2. Clear definitions for data and data holders
  3. Recognition of the role of flexible contractual terms
  4. Differentiation between B2B and B2C contexts
  5. Strict conditions for B2G data requests
  6. Promotion of cloud adoption
  7. No new obstacles to international data flows
  8. A longer transition period of at least 36 months

Whereas data is at the core of many European companies’ innovation and business model, the statement, signed by 30 industry federations, shows how critical the situation is across the EU industry.

The full text of the joint statement can be found here.