The European Parliament and EU member states have reached an agreement on legislation to regulate the use of billions of pieces of data generated by connected objects and better exploit their economic potential.
Cars, phones, personal assistants… Everyday objects generate an exploding amount of data. Global data is expected to increase from 33 zettabytes (trillion trillion bytes) in 2018 to 175 zettabytes in 2025, according to the European Commission.
The possible uses are numerous. For example, the owner of a car wants to share the data of his journeys in order to get better rates. Aggregated data from millions of users can help develop or improve traffic information services.
Yet it is estimated that 80% of industrial data today remains unused.
MEPs and EU member states late Tuesday night agreed on the text of a new regulation the Commission tabled in February 2022 to lift the brakes on its use.
The law, which will apply to all sectors of the economy from 2025 but can be supplemented by specific sectoral regulations, specifies who can create value from data and under what conditions.
The aim is to ensure companies have fairer access to data, create new innovative services and enable more competitive prices for customer services and the repair of connected objects.
The aim is to generate an additional gross domestic product (GDP) of 270 billion euros in the EU by 2028.
protect SMEs
The regulation gives consumers access to the data they generate, which is often only collected from manufacturers. It allows them to be shared with third-party companies to provide services.
In addition, the incentive for manufacturers to invest in the production of data should be maintained. It compensates for the costs associated with the transmission of their data and prevents their use to develop a competing product.
It is intended to protect SMEs’ access to data, in particular by protecting them from abusive clauses by large corporations.
It allows public bodies to access private companies’ data to deal with emergencies or to carry out specific missions.
Customers of “cloud” services (remote data hosting) can also switch providers more easily.
This law “will ensure that industrial data is exchanged, stored and processed in full compliance with European regulations.” “It will create a thriving, innovative and open data economy,” welcomed EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, who announced the project led.
Consumer groups, however, denounced “a missed opportunity”. “The European institutions have given too much leeway to companies that can prevent consumers from passing on their data to other service providers on the basis of a trade secret,” criticized Ursula Pachl, Deputy Director-General of the European Consumer Union Bureau (BEUC).
Despite supporting the creation of a legal framework, digital giants fear losing control of a precious resource.
“Unfortunately, the agreement reached does nothing to enable responsible data sharing by companies, nor does it allow users the freedom to choose how to use their exported data,” said Alexandre Roure, CCIA’s director of public policies. the lobby of the tech giants.