The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise has responded to the European Commission’s consultation process on a new Regulation on harmonised rules for fair access to, and use of, data (the Data Act).
The proposed new Data Act contains horizontal rules that cover all sectors. This means that companies operating in sectors where no problems have previously been identified will be subject to regulation without reasonable justification. Any problems concerning access to data in individual sectors should be addressed by sectoral legislation, which is already being developed. There is also new cross-sectoral legislation regulating data use. The impact of this should be evaluated before considering any further horizontal legislation.
In order to strengthen the competitiveness of European industry, the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise is calling upon the European Commission to remove mandatory data-sharing rules from the Data Act. Instead, the European Commission should propose measures to protect trade secrets and intellectual property rights when data is voluntarily made available. The business risk involved in data sharing is something that companies must bear; this also applies to data transfers to overseas countries.
The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise fears that the European Commission’s impact assessment has both underestimated the costs and overestimated the likely benefits of the Data Act. The Confederation therefore questions whether the proposed Data Act will truly bring overall benefits to European consumers and businesses.
EUData act