Data Act

In situations of exceptional need, it may be necessary for public sector bodies, the Commission, the European Central Bank or Union bodies to use in the performance of their statutory duties in the public interest existing data, including, where relevant, accompanying metadata, to respond to public emergencies or in other exceptional cases. Exceptional needs are circumstances which are unforeseeable and limited in time, in contrast to other circumstances which might be planned, scheduled, periodic or frequent. While the notion of ‘data holder’ does not, generally, include public sector bodies, it may include public undertakings. Research-performing organisations and research-funding organisations could also be organised as public sector bodies or bodies governed by public law. To limit the burden on businesses, microenterprises and small enterprises should only be under the obligation to provide data to public sector bodies, the Commission, the European Central Bank or Union bodies in situations of exceptional need where such data is required to respond to a public emergency and the public sector body, the Commission, the European Central Bank or the Union body is unable to obtain such data by alternative means in a timely and effective manner under equivalent conditions.

In the case of public emergencies, such as public health emergencies, emergencies resulting from natural disasters including those aggravated by climate change and environmental degradation, as well as human-induced major disasters, such as major cybersecurity incidents, the public interest resulting from the use of the data will outweigh the interests of the data holders to dispose freely of the data they hold. In such a case, data holders should be placed under an obligation to make the data available to public sector bodies, the Commission, the European Central Bank or Union bodies upon their request. The existence of a public emergency should be determined or declared in accordance with Union or national law and based on the relevant procedures, including those of the relevant international organisations. In such cases, the public sector body should demonstrate that the data in scope of the request could not otherwise be obtained in a timely and effective manner and under equivalent conditions, for instance by way of the voluntary provision of data by another enterprise or the consultation of a public database.

An exceptional need may also arise from non-emergency situations. In such cases, a public sector body, the Commission, the European Central Bank or a Union body should be allowed to request only non-personal data. The public sector body should demonstrate that the data are necessary for the fulfilment of a specific task carried out in the public interest that has been explicitly provided for by law, such as the production of official statistics or the mitigation of or recovery from a public emergency. In addition, such a request can be made only when the public sector body, the Commission, the European Central Bank or a Union body has identified specific data that could not otherwise be obtained in a timely and effective manner and under equivalent conditions and only if it has exhausted all other means at its disposal to obtain such data, such as obtaining the data through voluntary agreements, including purchasing of non-personal data on the market by offering market rates, or by relying on existing obligations to make data available or the adoption of new legislative measures which could guarantee the timely availability of data. The conditions and principles governing requests, such as those related to purpose limitation, proportionality, transparency and time limitation, should also apply. In cases of requests for data necessary for the production of official statistics, the requesting public sector body should also demonstrate whether the national law allows it to purchase non-personal data on the market.

This Regulation should not apply to, or pre-empt, voluntary arrangements for the exchange of data between private and public entities, including the provision of data by SMEs, and is without prejudice to Union legal acts providing for mandatory information requests by public entities to private entities. Obligations placed on data holders to provide data that are motivated by needs of a non-exceptional nature, in particular where the range of data and of data holders is known or where data use can take place on a regular basis, as in the case of reporting obligations and internal market obligations, should not be affected by this Regulation. Requirements to access data to verify compliance with applicable rules, including where public sector bodies assign the task of the verification of compliance to entities other than public sector bodies, should also not be affected by this Regulation.

This Regulation complements and is without prejudice to the Union and national law providing for access to and the use of data for statistical purposes, in particular Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council⁽¹⁾ as well as national legal acts related to official statistics.

^{(1) Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 on European statistics and repealing Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1101/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities, Council Regulation (EC) No 322/97 on Community Statistics, and Council Decision 89/382/EEC, Euratom establishing a Committee on the Statistical Programmes of the European Communities (OJ L 87, 31.3.2009, p. 164).}

In accordance with Article 6(1) and (3) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679, a proportionate, limited and predictable framework at Union level is necessary when providing for the legal basis for the making available of data by data holders, in cases of exceptional needs, to public sector bodies, the Commission, the European Central Bank or Union bodies, both to ensure legal certainty and to minimise the administrative burdens placed on businesses. To that end, data requests from public sector bodies, the Commission, the European Central Bank or Union bodies to data holders should be specific, transparent and proportionate in their scope of content and their granularity. The purpose of the request and the intended use of the data requested should be specific and clearly explained, while allowing appropriate flexibility for the requesting entity to carry out its specific tasks in the public interest. The request should also respect the legitimate interests of the data holder to whom the request is made. The burden on data holders should be minimised by obliging requesting entities to respect the once-only principle, which prevents the same data from being requested more than once by more than one public sector body or the Commission, the European Central Bank or Union bodies. To ensure transparency, data requests made by the Commission, the European Central Bank or Union bodies should be made public without undue delay by the entity requesting the data. The European Central Bank and Union bodies should inform the Commission of their requests. If the data request has been made by a public sector body, that body should also notify the data coordinator of the Member State where the public sector body is established. Online public availability of all requests should be ensured. Upon the receipt of a notification of a data request, the competent authority can decide to assess the lawfulness of the request and exercise its functions in relation to the enforcement and application of this Regulation. Online public availability of all requests made by public sector bodies should be ensured by the data coordinator.

The objective of the obligation to provide the data is to ensure that public sector bodies, the Commission, the European Central Bank or Union bodies have the necessary knowledge to respond to, prevent or recover from public emergencies or to maintain the capacity to fulfil specific tasks explicitly provided for by law. The data obtained by those entities may be commercially sensitive. Therefore, neither Regulation (EU) 2022/868 nor Directive (EU) 2019/1024 of the European Parliament and of the Council⁽¹⁾ should apply to data made available under this Regulation and should not be considered as open data available for reuse by third parties. This however should not affect the applicability of Directive (EU) 2019/1024 to the reuse of official statistics for the production of which data obtained pursuant to this Regulation was used, provided the reuse does not include the underlying data. In addition, provided the conditions laid down in this Regulation are met, the possibility of sharing the data for conducting research or for the development, production and dissemination of official statistics should not be affected. Public sector bodies should also be allowed to exchange data obtained pursuant to this Regulation with other public sector bodies, the Commission, the European Central Bank or Union bodies in order to address the exceptional needs for which the data has been requested.

^{(1) Directive (EU) 2019/1024 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on open data and the re-use of public sector information (OJ L 172, 26.6.2019, p. 56).}

Data holders should have the possibility to either decline a request made by a public sector body, the Commission, the European Central Bank or a Union body or seek its modification without undue delay and, in any event, no later than within a period of five or 30 working days, depending on the nature of the exceptional need invoked in the request. Where relevant, the data holder should have this possibility where it does not have control over the data requested, namely where it does not have immediate access to the data and cannot determine its availability. A valid reason not to make the data available should exist if it can be shown that the request is similar to a previously submitted request for the same purpose by another public sector body or the Commission, the European Central Bank or a Union body and the data holder has not been notified of the erasure of the data pursuant to this Regulation. A data holder declining the request or seeking its modification should communicate the underlying justification to the public sector body, the Commission, the European Central Bank or a Union body requesting the data. Where the sui generis database rights under Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council⁽¹⁾ apply in relation to the requested datasets, data holders should exercise their rights in such a way that does not prevent the public sector body, the Commission, the European Central Bank or Union body from obtaining the data, or from sharing it, in accordance with this Regulation.

^{(1) Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 1996 on the legal protection of databases (OJ L 77, 27.3.1996, p. 20).}

In the case of an exceptional need related to a public emergency response, public sector bodies should use non-personal data wherever possible. In the case of requests on the basis of an exceptional need not related to a public emergency, personal data cannot be requested. Where personal data fall within the scope of the request, the data holder should anonymise the data. Where it is strictly necessary to include personal data in the data to be made available to a public sector body, the Commission, the European Central Bank or a Union body or where anonymisation proves impossible, the entity requesting the data should demonstrate the strict necessity and the specific and limited purposes for processing. The applicable rules on personal data protection should be complied with. The making available of the data and their subsequent use should be accompanied by safeguards for the rights and interests of individuals concerned by those data.

Data made available to public sector bodies, the Commission, the European Central Bank or Union bodies on the basis of an exceptional need should be used only for the purposes for which they were requested, unless the data holder that made the data available has expressly agreed for the data to be used for other purposes. The data should be erased once it is no longer necessary for the purposes stated in the request, unless agreed otherwise, and the data holder should be informed thereof. This Regulation builds on the existing access regimes in the Union and the Member States and does not change the national law on public access to documents in the context of transparency obligations. Data should be erased once it is no longer needed to comply with such transparency obligations.

When reusing data provided by data holders, public sector bodies, the Commission, the European Central Bank or Union bodies should respect both existing applicable Union or national law and contractual obligations to which the data holder is subject. They should refrain from developing or enhancing a connected product or related service that compete with the connected product or related service of the data holder as well as from sharing the data with a third party for those purposes. They should likewise provide public acknowledgement to the data holders upon their request and should be responsible for maintaining the security of the data received. Where the disclosure of trade secrets of the data holder to public sector bodies, the Commission, the European Central Bank or Union bodies is strictly necessary to fulfil the purpose for which the data has been requested, confidentiality of such disclosure should be guaranteed prior to the disclosure of data.

When the safeguarding of a significant public good is at stake, such as responding to public emergencies, the public sector body, the Commission, the European Central Bank or the Union body concerned should not be expected to compensate enterprises for the data obtained. Public emergencies are rare events and not all such emergencies require the use of data held by enterprises. At the same time, the obligation to provide data might constitute a considerable burden on microenterprises and small enterprises. They should therefore be allowed to claim compensation even in the context of a public emergency response. The business activities of the data holders are therefore not likely to be negatively affected as a consequence of the public sector bodies, the Commission, the European Central Bank or Union bodies having recourse to this Regulation. However, as cases of an exceptional need, other than cases of responding to public emergencies, might be more frequent, data holders should in such cases be entitled to a reasonable compensation which should not exceed the technical and organisational costs incurred in complying with the request and the reasonable margin required for making the data available to the public sector body, the Commission, the European Central Bank or the Union body. The compensation should not be understood as constituting payment for the data itself or as being compulsory. Data holders should not be able to claim compensation where national law prevents national statistical institutes or other national authorities responsible for the production of statistics from compensating data holders for making data available. The public sector body, the Commission, the European Central Bank or the Union body concerned should be able to challenge the level of compensation requested by the data holder by bringing the matter to the competent authority of the Member State where the data holder is established.

A public sector body, the Commission, the European Central Bank or a Union body should be entitled to share the data it has obtained pursuant to the request with other entities or persons when this is necessary to carry out scientific research activities or analytical activities it cannot perform itself, provided that those activities are compatible with the purpose for which the data was requested. It should inform the data holder of such sharing in a timely manner. Such data may also be shared under the same circumstances with the national statistical institutes and Eurostat for the development, production and dissemination of official statistics. Such research activities should, however, be compatible with the purpose for which the data was requested and the data holder should be informed about the further sharing of the data it has provided. Individuals conducting research or research organisations with whom those data may be shared should act either on a not-for-profit basis or in the context of a public-interest mission recognised by the State. Organisations upon which commercial undertakings have a significant influence, allowing such undertakings to exercise control due to structural situations which could result in preferential access to the results of the research, should not be considered to be research organisations for the purposes of this Regulation.

In order to handle a cross-border public emergency or another exceptional need, data requests may be addressed to data holders in Member States other than that of the requesting public sector body. In such a case, the requesting public sector body should notify the competent authority of the Member State where the data holder is established in order to allow it to examine the request against the criteria established in this Regulation. The same should apply to requests made by the Commission, the European Central Bank or a Union body. Where personal data are requested, the public sector body should notify the supervisory authority responsible for monitoring the application of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 in the Member State where the public sector body is established. The competent authority concerned should be entitled to advise the public sector body, the Commission, the European Central Bank or the Union body to cooperate with the public sector bodies of the Member State in which the data holder is established on the need to ensure a minimised administrative burden on the data holder. When the competent authority has substantiated objections as regards the compliance of the request with this Regulation, it should reject the request of the public sector body, the Commission, the European Central Bank or the Union body, which should take those objections into account before taking any further action, including resubmitting the request.