Comments on the forthcoming Data Act from the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise 

The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise’s comments in summary are the following: 

• The Data Act must not undermine the competitiveness of companies and European industry.
• Relevant existing and planned international regulation and agreements on data access must be taken into consideration in the legislative work.
• We emphasize the importance of achieving rules that are proportionate and - as far as possible - principle-based and technology-neutral. This is crucial for ensuring predictability, encouraging innovative power and creating a positive investment climate.
• The Data Act must not overlap or conflict with existing or planned sectoral and horizontal legislation with the same or similar purposes.
• We oppose rules on mandatory data sharing to be included in the Data Act.
• Companies’ willingness and ability to share data is determined by legal, technical, and commercial considerations. It is therefore important that data sharing continues to protect freedom of contract and be conducted on a voluntary basis. Companies must be able to decide whether and how data sharing should take place on a case-by-case basis and consider which underlying technical solutions are used, which business models parties have, and the legal regulations that are applied.
• It is not the role of public policy to manage how and on what terms market actors choose to co-operate.
• It must be legally easier to assess how data can be shared, in particular with regards to intellectual property rights, integrity, and competition law. In Sweden, it must also be ensured that information shared by companies is covered by confidentiality and thus cannot be passed on to other actors due to the principle of public access.
• The revision of the Database Directive must ensure that the protection of databases and the protection of business secrets is fully respected, although this does not necessarily imply an exclusive right to such content per se.

Below are our more detailed comments on the issues raised by the Report.