25 June, 2021

ETNO comments on the Inception Impact Assessment on the Data Act

ETNO welcomes the possibility to provide its comments below in response to the public consultation on the Inception Impact Assessment on the future Data Act. 

Business-To-Government Data Sharing
Telecommunications operators cooperate with Public Administrations, typically by providing mobility aggregated data as a service to tackle epidemics, natural disasters and environmental pollution. This data exchange has increased during the COVID-19 outbreak, by giving Public Authorities access to anonymous and aggregated data in order to better make predictions on the spread of the pandemic.

Such cooperation is generally based on voluntary contractual agreements, but oftentimes lacks compensation on investments made (e.g. inherent costs of extracting, analysing and aggregating/securing the data).

For this cooperation to flourish in the long term, and not just as an urgency response to a crisis
situation, it is of outmost importance that any data sharing agreement is based on mutually beneficial terms in order to offer long-term sustainable solutions.

 

Business-To-Business data sharing
Data sharing is typically based on contractual agreements between the businesses concerned. These contracts usually define the conditions (duration, purpose, compensation) and restrictions for using data, thereby addressing the specific needs of the contractual parties. Voluntary data sharing is then governed by general contract and competition law. 

Business-to-business (B2B) data sharing should continue to be based on voluntary contractual agreements, as a flexible way to address the specificities needed to make B2B sharing mutually beneficial.

Read the full response at the link below.