Skip to main content
Shaping Europe’s digital future
Consultation results | Publication

Public Consultation on the Data Act: Summary Report

The Commission has published the summary report on the public consultation on the Data Act, presenting stakeholder views that will help shape the proposal.

Speech bubbles representing people giving their opinion for the public consultation on the data act

© iStock by Getty Images -1165856829 Pogonici

The Commission held a public consultation on the Data Act between 3 June to 3 September 2021. The objective was to gather views and experience of stakeholders, citizens and businesses on various topics to help shape the Commission’s proposal for a Data Act.

In total, 449 stakeholders responded to the questionnaire from 32 countries (25 EU Member States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States). Businesses constituted the largest share, with 122 business associations and 105 companies/ business organisations. One hundred respondents were public authorities and 58 were citizens (56 from the EU and 2 non-EU)

The questionnaire (.pdf) gathered feedback on the different measures considered in preparing the Data Act. It was divided into the following 8 sections:

 

  1. Business-to-government data sharing for the public interest
  2. Business-to-business data sharing
  3. Tools for data sharing: smart contracts
  4. Clarifying rights on non-personal Internet-of-Things data stemming from professional use
  5. Improving portability for business users of cloud services
  6. Complementing the portability right under Article 20 GDPR
  7. Intellectual Property Rights – Protection of Databases
  8. Safeguards for non-personal data in international contexts

To read more about responses and the findings, download the summary report (.pdf)

Contributions

Additional position papers

Related content

Public consultation on the Data Act

Consultation | 03 June 2021

The objective of the Data Act is to propose measures to create a fair data economy by ensuring access to and use of data, including in business-to-business and business-to-government situations. The initiative would not alter data protection legislation and would seek to preserve incentives in data generation. Under this initiative, a review of Directive 96/9/EC on the legal protection of databases is also planned in order to ensure continued relevance for the data economy. This questionnaire aims at consulting all types of stakeholders, including citizens and businesses, about the different measures being explored in preparing the Data Act.