EU Member States will work on the compromise text of the Czech Presidency of the EU Council on the first four chapters of the Data Act (see EUROPE 12992/12) at a meeting of the EU Council’s Telecommunications Working Party on Tuesday 19 July.
Part of the work of the Czech Presidency of the EU Council is focused on definitions. In this respect, several new definitions have been included, such as ‘personal data’, ‘non-personal data’, ‘consent’ and ‘data subject’ in order to align the current text with provisions included in existing texts, such as the Data Governance Act (DGA) (see EUROPE 12953/32) or the DMA (see other news) (see EUROPE 12986/3).
In addition, the new version of the compromise text also returns to the issue of scope and now specifies that the regulation should apply to manufacturers of products and providers of related services placed on the market in the Union, “irrespective of their place of establishment, and the use of such products or related services in the Union”.
Also in this respect, the compromise document provides that the text also applies to data holders, regardless of their place of establishment, who make data available to data recipients in the Union.
The Czech Presidency of the EU Council has also been working on the question of the right of users to access and use data generated by the use of related products or services.
On this point, the text aims to provide safeguards by specifying that, where the user cannot access the data directly from the related product or service concerned, the holder must make available to the user the data generated by their use and the relevant metadata “ without undue delay, free of charge, easily, securely, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and, where applicable, continuously and in real-time”.
In addition, the document also addresses the scope of data sharing obligations between businesses and consumers.
The text adds medium-sized enterprises to the list – which already includes small and micro enterprises – of enterprises to which the text does not apply, provided that they have been in the medium-sized enterprise category for less than a year or where the products have been placed on the market for less than a year by a medium-sized enterprise.
Finally, the text specifies the composition of the annual reports on the activities of the dispute settlement bodies, which should include: the number of disputes received, the results of these disputes, the average time taken to settle the disputes and the common problems that frequently arise and lead to disputes between the parties.
See the document: https://aeur.eu/f/2ok (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)