By Paolo Maria Gangi, ECTA AI & Data Committee member, Studio Legale Gangi, Italy

The European Union on 27 November 2023, adopted the final text of the Data Act, which has been subsequently published in the EU Official Journal on 22 December 2023 and entered into force yesterday, 11 January 2024 (see official press release here).

The Data Act is a comprehensive regulation whose main goal is to create ‘an optimal allocation of data for the benefit of society’ (Recital 2 of the Data Act).

The Data Act main provisions are related to the use and sharing of data, both personal (within the meaning of the European privacy legislation, namely the GDPR) as well as non-personal data, produced by users in using ‘connected products’ and ‘related services’ which is to say IoT items.

Other sections of the Data Act provide the following: 1) a legal framework for the obligation of sharing, under some specific circumstances, data with public sector bodies; 2) standard contractual terms and legal principles for data access or sharing agreements; 3) protection measures for users who want to switch from a data processing services entity to another; 4) legal rules for enhancing the interoperability, communication and transfer of datasets between different platforms and users.

“The Data Act which will become applicable as of 11 September 2025, complements the Data Governance Act, applicable as of September 2023, and is intended to stimulate the data market and to provide legal clarity regarding the use of data.” stated Delia Belciu, ECTA AI & Data Committee Chair, DB Law Office, Romania

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