Data Act· Article 2

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(4c) ‘access’ means data use, in accordance with specific technical, legal or organisational requirements, without necessarily implying the transmission or downloading of data;

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(c) the following points (28a) and (28b) are inserted: (28a) ‘bodies governed by public law’ means bodies that have all of the following characteristics: (a) they are established for the specific purpose of meeting needs in the general interest, not having an industrial or commercial character; (b) they have legal personality; (c) they are financed, for the most part by the State, regional or local authorities, or by other bodies governed by public law; or are subject to management supervision by those authorities or bodies; or have an administrative, managerial or supervisory board, more than half of whose members are appointed by the State, regional or local authorities, or by other bodies governed by public law; (28b) ‘public undertaking’ means any undertaking over which a public sector body may exercise directly or indirectly a dominant influence by virtue of their ownership of it, their financial participation therein, or the rules which govern it. A dominant influence on the part of the public sector bodies shall be presumed in any of the following cases in which those bodies, directly or indirectly: (a) hold the majority of the undertaking’s subscribed capital; (b) control the majority of the votes attaching to shares issued by the undertaking; (c) can appoint more than half of the undertaking’s administrative, management or supervisory body;;’

Tracker noteThe amendment names this article, but which paragraph or point it changes has not been automatically established, so it is not yet linked to a specific point.

(38a) ‘data intermediation service’ means a service which aims to establish relationships of an economic character for the purposes of data sharing between an undetermined number of data subjects or data holders and data users, through technical, legal or other means, including for the purpose of exercising the rights of data subjects in relation to personal data, and which: (1) do not have as their main purpose the intermediation of copyright-protected content; (2) are not jointly procured by several legal persons for exclusive use among them;

Tracker noteThe amendment names this article, but which paragraph or point it changes has not been automatically established, so it is not yet linked to a specific point.

(b) public undertakings, under Chapter VIIc Section 2 for commercial or non-commercial purposes other than for the initial purpose of providing services in the general interest for which the documents were produced, except for the exchange of documents between public undertakings and public sector bodies purely in pursuit of the public tasks of public sector bodies; such re-use should, where possible, take place under open, standardised and interoperable conditions that facilitate cross-border and cross-sector use, in particular by SMEs and public-interest actors.

(4b) ‘permission’ means giving data users the right to the processing of non-personal data;

(4c) ‘access’ means data use, in accordance with specific technical, legal or organisational requirements, without necessarily implying the transmission or downloading of data;

(4c) ‘access’ means data use, in accordance with specific technical, legal or organisational requirements, without necessarily implying the transmission or downloading of data;

Justification

The proposed definition risks reducing ‘access’ to mere in-situ or view-only consultation under conditions unilaterally determined by the data holder, without guaranteeing transmission, downloading, portability or effective re-use of data. This would undermine the practical effectiveness of Data Act access rights, contradict the Regulation’s logic of machine-readable and retrievable data access, weaken innovation and downstream services, and reinforce the market power of data holders at the expense of users, SMEs and third-party providers.

(4c) ‘access’ means data use, in accordance with specific technical, legal or organisational requirements, without necessarily implying the transmission or downloading of data;

Justification

This definition can create legal uncertainty and is therefore deleted.

(4c) ‘access’ means data use, in accordance with specific technical, legal or organisational requirements, without necessarily implying the transmission or downloading of data;’

Justification

The proposed definition runs the risk of seriously undermining the right to access data under the Data Act, as it implies that data can be accessed but not transmitted or downloaded. Data holders could therefore limit access to read-only interfaces and thus prevent users and third parties from processing, storing or combining data, which would contravene a number of provisions and the objectives of the Data Act. In order to guard against this, there should be no definition of ‘access’.

(4c) ‘access’ means data use, in accordance with specific technical, legal or organisational requirements, without necessarily implying the transmission or downloading of data;

(4c) ‘access’ means data use, in accordance with specific technical, legal or organisational requirements, without necessarily implying the transmission or downloading of data;

Effectnew Parliament proposal instruction expressly deletes existing law

Justification

Concerning the definition of data intermediation services as the Omnibus introduces the definition in para. 38a.

Effectnew Parliament proposal instruction expressly deletes existing law

Justification

Since the draft report introduces a new definition of intermediation services we need to delete point 10 of Article 2 of the Data Act (on top of deleting point 38a)

Effectnew Parliament proposal instruction expressly deletes existing law

(13) ‘data holder’ means a natural or legal person that has the right or obligation, in accordance with this Regulation, applicable Union law or national legislation adopted in accordance with Union law, to use orand make available data, including, where contractually agreed, product data or related service data, which it has retrieved or generated during the provision of a related service;

(13) ‘data holder’ means a natural or legal person that has the right or obligation, in accordance with this Regulation, applicable Union law or national legislation adopted in accordance with Union law, to use orand make available data, including, where contractually agreed, product data or related service data, which it has retrieved or generated during the provision of a related service;

(c) the following points (28a) and (28b) are inserted: (28a) ‘bodies governed by public law’ means bodies that have all of the following characteristics: (a) they are established for the specific purpose of meeting needs in the general interest, not having an industrial or commercial character; (b) they have legal personality; (c) they are financed, for the most part by the State, regional or local authorities, or by other bodies governed by public law; or are subject to management supervision by those authorities or bodies; or have an administrative, managerial or supervisory board, more than half of whose members are appointed by the State, regional or local authorities, or by other bodies governed by public law; (28b) ‘public undertaking’ means any undertaking over which a public sector body may exercise directly or indirectly a dominant influence by virtue of their ownership of it, their financial participation therein, or the rules which govern it. A dominant influence on the part of the public sector bodies shall be presumed in any of the following cases in which those bodies, directly or indirectly: (a) hold the majority of the undertaking’s subscribed capital; (b) control the majority of the votes attaching to shares issued by the undertaking; (c) can appoint more than half of the undertaking’s administrative, management or supervisory body;’;

Justification

This amendment preserves the existing definition in order to maintain greater legal clarity and ensure that the notion of bodies governed by public law continues to be interpreted in a manner consistent with the public-interest objectives of the Regulation. Keeping the definition directly in the text also helps avoid unintended interpretative extensions that could broaden its scope beyond what is necessary in the context of the Data Act.

(28a) ‘bodies governed by public law’ means bodies that have all of the following characteristics: (a) they are established for the specific purpose of meeting needs in the general interest, not having an industrial or commercial character; (b) they have legal personality; (c) they are financed, for the most part by the State, regional or local authorities, or by other bodies governed by public law; or are subject to management supervision by those authorities or bodies; or have an administrative, managerial or supervisory board, more than half of whose members are appointed by the State, regional or local authorities, or by other bodies governed by public law;

Justification

This amendment preserves the existing definition in order to maintain greater legal clarity and ensure that the notion of bodies governed by public law continues to be interpreted in a manner consistent with the public-interest objectives of the Regulation. Keeping the definition directly in the text also helps avoid unintended interpretative extensions that could broaden its scope beyond what is necessary in the context of the Data Act.

(28a) ‘bodies governed by public law’ means bodies that have all of the following characteristics: (a) they are established for the specific purpose of meeting needs in the general interest, not having an industrial or commercial character; (b) they have legal personality; (c) they are financed, for the most part by the State, regional or local authorities, or by other bodies governed by public law; or are subject to management supervision by those authorities or bodies; or have an administrative, managerial or supervisory board, more than half of whose members are appointed by the State, regional or local authorities, or by other bodies governed by public law;

Justification

This amendment preserves the existing definition in order to maintain greater legal clarity and ensure that the notion of bodies governed by public law continues to be interpreted in a manner consistent with the public-interest objectives of the Regulation.

(28b) ‘public undertaking’ means any undertaking over which a public sector body may exercise directly or indirectly a dominant influence by virtue of their ownership of it, their financial participation therein, or the rules which govern it. A dominant influence on the part of the public sector bodies shall be presumed in any of the following cases in which those bodies, directly or indirectly: (a) hold the majority of the undertaking’s subscribed capital; (b) control the majority of the votes attaching to shares issued by the undertaking; (c) can appoint more than half of the undertaking’s administrative, management or supervisory body;;

Justification

This amendment preserves the existing definition in order to maintain greater legal clarity and ensure that the notion of bodies governed by public law continues to be interpreted in a manner consistent with the public-interest objectives of the Regulation. Keeping the definition directly in the text also helps avoid unintended interpretative extensions that could broaden its scope beyond what is necessary in the context of the Data Act.

(28b) ‘public undertaking’ means any undertaking over which a public sector body may exercise directly or indirectly a dominant influence by virtue of their ownership of it, their financial participation therein, or the rules which govern it. A dominant influence on the part of the public sector bodies shall be presumed in any of the following cases in which those bodies, directly or indirectly: (a) hold the majority of the undertaking’s subscribed capital; (b) control the majority of the votes attaching to shares issued by the undertaking; (c) can appoint more than half of the undertaking’s administrative, management or supervisory body;;

(38a) ‘data intermediation service’ means a service which aims to establish commercial relationships of an economic character for the purposes of data sharing between an undetermined number of data subjects orand data holders on the one hand and data users on the other, through technical, legal or other means, including for the purpose of exercising the rights of data subjects in relation to personal data, andexcluding whichthe following: (1) do not have as their main purpose the intermediation of copyright-protected content;(a) services that obtain data from data holders and aggregate, enrich or transform the data for the purpose of adding substantial value to it and license the use of the resulting data to data users, without establishing a commercial relationship between data holders and data users; (b) services that focus on the intermediation of copyright-protected content; (2) are not jointly procured by several legal persons for exclusive use among them;(c) services that are exclusively used by one data holder in order to enable the use of the data held by that data holder, or that are used by multiple legal persons in a closed group, including supplier or customer relationship or collaborations established by contract, in particular those that have as a main objective to ensure the functionalities of objects and devices connected to the Internet of Things; (d) data sharing services offered by public sector bodies that do not aim to establish commercial relationships;

(d) the following pointspoint (38a) and (38b) areis inserted:

(38a) ‘data intermediation service’ means a service which aims to establish relationships of an economic character for the purposes of data sharing between an undetermined number of data subjects or data holders and data users, through technical, legal or other means, including for the purpose of exercising the rights of data subjects in relation to personal data, and which: (1) do not have as their main purpose the intermediation of copyright-protected content; (2) are not jointly procured by several legal persons for exclusive use among them;

Justification

The original Data Governance Act definition ensured a clear distinction between neutral data intermediation and the economic exploitation of data. Its safeguards and exclusions, including for copyright-focused services, closed ecosystems and services monetising data for their own purposes, are essential for legal certainty. Many current concerns stem precisely from the weakening of these elements.

Justification

Limiting the possiblity for VLOPs and Gatekeepers to register a data intermediation service.

(d) the following pointspoint (38a) and (38b) areis inserted:

(38a) ‘data intermediation service’ means a service which aims to establish relationships of an economic character for the purposes of data sharing between an undetermined number of data subjects or data holders and data users, through technical, legal or other means, including for the purpose of exercising the rights of data subjects in relation to personal data, and which: (1) do not have as their main purpose the intermediation of copyright-protected content; (2) are not jointly procured by several legal persons for exclusive use among them;

(38a) ‘data intermediation service’ means a service which aims to establish relationships of an economic character for the purposes of data sharing between an undetermined number of data subjects or data holders and data users, through technical, legal or other means, including for the purpose of exercising the rights of data subjects in relation to personal data, and which:‘data intermediation service’ means a service which aims to establish commercial relationships for the purposes of data sharing between an undetermined number of data subjects and data holders on the one hand and data users on the other, through technical, legal or other means, including for the purpose of exercising the rights of data subjects in relation to personal data, excluding at least the following: (a) services that obtain data from data holders and aggregate, enrich or transform the data for the purpose of adding substantial value to it and license the use of the resulting data to data users, without establishing a commercial relationship between data holders and data users; (b) services that focus on the intermediation of copyright-protected content; (c) services that are exclusively used by one data holder in order to enable the use of the data held by that data holder, or that are used by multiple legal persons in a closed group, including supplier or customer relationships or collaborations established by contract, in particular those that have as a main objective to ensure the functionalities of objects and devices connected to the Internet of Things; (d) data sharing services offered by public sector bodies that do not aim to establish commercial relationships;

(38b) ‘data altruism’ means the voluntary sharing of data on the basis of the consent of data subjects to process personal data pertaining to them, or of permissions of data holders to allow the use of their non-personal data without seeking or receiving a reward that goes beyond fair compensation related to the actual costs that they incur where they make their data available for objectives of general interest as provided for in nationalaccordance with Union law and, where applicable, national law, such as healthcare, combating climate change, improving mobility, facilitating the development, production and dissemination of official statistics, improving the provision of public services, public policy making or scientific research purposes in the general interest;

Justification

This amendment helps strengthen legal certainty and ensures that objectives of general interest are interpreted consistently within the existing EU legal framework, including applicable data protection rules.

(38b) ‘data altruism’ means the voluntary sharing of data on the basis of the consent of data subjects to process personal data pertaining to them, or of permissions of data holders to allow the use of their non-personal data without seeking or receiving a reward that goes beyond fair compensation related to the actual costs that they incur where they make their data available for objectives of general interest as provided for in national law, where applicable, such as healthcare, combating climate change, improving mobility, facilitating the development, production and dissemination of official statistics, improving the provision of public services, public policy making or scientific research purposes in the general interest;

(38b) ‘data altruism’ means the voluntary sharing of data on the basis of the consent of data subjects to process personal data pertaining to them, or of permissions of data holders to allow the use of their non-personal data without seeking or receiving a reward that goes beyond fair compensation related to the actual costs that they incur where they make their data available for objectives of general interest as provided for in national law, where applicable, such as healthcare, combating climate change, improving mobility, facilitating the development, production and dissemination of official statistics, improving the provision of public services, public policy making or scientific research purposes in the general interest;

(38b) ‘data altruism’ means the voluntary sharing of data on the basis of the consent of data subjects to process personal data pertaining to them, or of permissions of data holders to allow the use of their non-personal data without seeking or receiving a reward that goes beyond fair compensation related to the costs that they incur where they make their data available for objectives of general interest as provided for in national and Union law, where applicable, such as healthcare, combating climate change, improving mobility, facilitating the development, production and dissemination of official statistics, improving the provision of public services, public policy making or scientific research purposes in the general interest;

(38b) ‘data altruism’ means the voluntary sharing of data on the basis of the consent of data subjects to process personal data pertaining to them, or of permissions of data holders to allow the use of their non-personal data without seeking or receiving a reward that goes beyond fair compensation related to the actual costs that they incur where they make their data available for objectives of general interest asin providedaccordance forwith inUnion law, and where applicable national law, where applicable, such as healthcare, combating climate change, improving mobility, facilitating the development, production and dissemination of official statistics, improving the provision of public services, public policy making or scientific research purposes in the general interest;

(38b) ‘data altruism’ means the voluntary sharing of data on the basis of the consent of data subjects to process personal data pertaining to them, or of permissions of data holders to allow the use of their non-personal data without seeking or receiving a reward that goes beyond fair compensation related to the actual costs that they incur where they make their data available for objectives of general interest as provided for in national and Union law, where applicable, such as healthcare, combating climate change, improving mobility, facilitating the development, production and dissemination of official statistics, improving the provision of public services, public policy making or scientific research purposes in the general interest;

(45) ‘small mid-cap’ or ‘SMC’ means a small mid-cap enterprise as defined in Article 2 of the Annex to Commission Recommendation (EU) 2025/1099;

(50) ‘research data’ means data or documents, other than scientific publications, which are collected or produced in the course of scientific research activities and are used as evidence in the research process, or are commonly accepted in the research community as necessary to validate research findings andor results;

(50) ‘research data’ means data , other than scientific publications, which are collected or produced in the course of scientific research activities and are used as evidence in the research process, or are commonly accepted in the research community as necessary to validate research findings and results. It also includes research information, such as abstracts, citations, metadata and other information used to understand and assess research;

(50) ‘research data’ means data , other than scientific publications, which are collected or produced in the course of scientific research activities, in accordance with Article 4(38) of Regulation (EU) 2026/679, and are used as evidence in the research process, or are commonly accepted in the research community as necessary to validate research findings and results. Research data do not include data collected or produced in the context of processing with the principal aim of observing, establishing the profile or influencing the behaviour of natural persons for commercial purposes, in particular for behavioural advertising or the commercial targeting of individuals even where scientific methods are used;

(50) ‘research data’ means data , other than scientific publications, which are collected or produced in the course of scientific research activities and are used as evidence in the research process, or are commonly accepted in the research community as necessary to validate research findings and results; it also includes research information, such as abstracts, citations, metadata and other information used to understand and assess research;

(50) ‘research data’ means data , other than scientific publications, which are collected or produced in the course of scientific research activities, within the meaning of Article 4, point (38), of Regulation (EU) 2016/679, and are used as evidence in the research process, or are commonly accepted in the research community as necessary to validate research findings and results; research data does not include data collected or produced in the course of processing whose principal object is to observe, profile or influence the behaviour of natural persons for commercial purposes, in particular for behavioural advertising or the commercial targeting of individuals, even where scientific methods are used;

Justification

The definition of research data conditions the scope of the safeguards attaching to them. Its clarification ensures that data collected or produced in the course of scientific research are covered irrespective of the sector in which the research is carried out, while excluding processing whose principal object is the observation or influencing of behaviour.

(50) ‘research data’ means data, other than scientific publications, which are collected or produced in the course of scientific research activities and are used as evidence in the research process, or are commonly accepted in the research community as necessary to validate research findings and results, including research information, such as abstracts, citations, metadata and other information used to understand and assess research, as well as scientific publications;

(51) ‘re-use’ means the use by natural persons or legal entitiespersons of data or documents held by:

(51) ‘re-use’ means the use by natural persons or legal entitiespersons of data or documents held by:

(51) ‘re-use’ means the use by natural persons or legal entitiespersons of data or documents held by:

(51) ‘re-use’ means the use by natural persons or legal entitiespersons of data or documents held by:

(52) ‘high-value datasets’ means datapersonal and non-personal data, as well as 50 documents the re-use of which is associated with important benefits for society, the environment and the economy, in particular because of their suitability for the creation of value-added services, applications and new, high-quality and decent jobs, and because of the number of potential beneficiaries of the value-added services and applications based on those data and documents;

(52) ‘high-value datasets’ means data and documents the re-use of which is associated with important benefits for society, the environment and the economy,public in particular because of their suitability for the creation of value-added services, applications and new, high-quality and decent jobs, and because of the number of potential beneficiaries of the value-added services and applications based on those data and documentsinterest;

(52) ‘high-value datasets’ means datapersonal and non-personal data, as well as documents thewhose re-use of which is associated with important benefits for society, the environment and the economy, in particular because of their suitability for the creation of value-added services, applications and new, high-quality and decent jobs, and because of the number of potential beneficiaries of the value-added services and applications based on those data and documents;

Justification

Article 4(2) of the Treaty on European Union reserves national security to the exclusive responsibility of each Member State. The addition ensures that the categories of protected data expressly include those relating to national security, public security, defence and public order, so that the re-use regime cannot be invoked to obtain access to data falling within the sole competence of the Member States.

(54) ‘secure processing environment’ means the physical or virtual environment and organisational means to ensure compliance with Union law in particular with regard to data subjects’ rights, intellectual property rights, and commercial and statistical confidentiality, integrity and accessibility, as well as with applicable national law, in order to protect personal data and data relating to identifiable natural persons from re-identification, personal data breaches and any unlawful use or trading, and to allow the entity providing the secure processing environment to determine and supervise all data processing actions, including the display, storage, download and export of data and the calculation of derivative data through computational algorithms;

54. ‘secure processing environment’ means the physical or virtual environment and organisational means to ensure compliance with Union law in particular with regard to data subjects’ rights, intellectual property rights, and commercial and statistical confidentiality, integrity and accessibility, as well as with applicable national law, and to allow the entity providing the secure processing environment to determine and supervise all data processing actions, including the display, storage, download and export of data and the calculation of derivative data through computational algorithms, ensuring governance, access control, traceability, anonymisation, data minimisation, data protection impact assessments and compliance with security requirements, business confidentiality and protection of data subject rights, as well as interoperability with other secure processing environments, within an EU-wide framework;

Justification

Proper supervision of all data processing actions is necessary, while ensuring data protection in accordance with the legislation in force and without prejudice to data subjects.

(54) ‘secure processing environment’ means the physical or virtual environment and organisational means to ensure compliance with Union law in particular with regard to data subjects’ rights, intellectual property rights, and commercial and statistical confidentiality, integrity and accessibility, as well as with applicable national law, to protect personal data and data relating to identifiable natural persons against re-identification, against personal data breaches, and against unlawful use and trade, and to allow the entity providing the secure processing environment to determine and supervise all data processing actions, including the display, storage, download and export of data and the calculation of derivative data through computational algorithms;

(58) ‘formal open standard’ means a freely accessible standard which has been laid down in written form, detailing specifications for the requirements on how to ensure software interoperability;

(58) ‘formal open standard’ means a freely accessible standard which has been laid down in written form, detailing specifications for the requirements on how to ensure software interoperability;

(59) ‘reasonable return on investment’ means a percentage of the overall charge, in addition to the amount needed to recover the eligible costs, not exceeding 5 percentage points above the fixed interest rate of the ECB;

(60) ‘data localisation requirement’ means any obligation, prohibition, condition, limit or other requirement provided for in the laws, regulations or administrative provisions of a Member State or resulting from general and consistent administrative practices in a Member State and in bodies governed by public law, including in the field of public procurement, without prejudice to Directive 2014/24/EU, which imposes the processing of data in the territory of a specific Member State or hinders the processing of data in any other Member State. A requirement shall not constitute a data localisation requirement within the meaning of this point where it is justified by reasons or public security or where it is necessary and proportionate in order to protect personal data, sensitive data or high-value datasets from any access, transfer or use resulting from the extra-territorial application of a law of a third country that may be cause harm to the Union or its Member States;

(60) ‘data localisation requirement’ means any obligation, prohibition, condition, limit or other requirement provided for in the laws, regulations or administrative provisions of a Member State or resulting from general and consistent administrative practices in a Member State and in bodies governed by public law, including in the field of public procurement, without prejudice to Directive 2014/24/EU, which imposes the processing of data in the territory of a specific Member State or hinders the processing of data in any other Member State; a requirement shall not constitute a data localisation requirement within the meaning of this point where it is justified on grounds of public security, service continuity in the face of unilateral extraterritorial suspension risks, or where it is necessary and proportionate to protect personal data, sensitive data or high-value datasets against access, transfer or use resulting from the extraterritorial application of a third-country law likely to cause harm to the Union or its Member States;

Justification

The growing extraterritorial reach of certain third-country laws exposes personal data, sensitive data and high-value datasets held in the Union to access, transfer or use that may run counter to the Union’s economic security and to the protection of natural persons. This exception, framed around the established grounds of public security and the principles of necessity and proportionality, ensures that the prohibition on data localisation requirements does not prevent Member States from protecting data whose exposure to extraterritorial reach would be liable to cause harm to the Union or its Member States.

(60) ‘data localisation requirement’ means any obligation, prohibition, condition, limit or other requirement provided for in the laws, regulations or administrative provisions of a Member State or resulting from general and consistent administrative practices in a Member State and in bodies governed by public law, including in the field of public procurement, without prejudice to Directive 2014/24/EU, which imposes the processing of data in the territory of a specific Member State or hinders the processing of data in any other Member State;