Article 32i – Subject matter and scope

This Chapter establishes a set of rules governing the re-use and the practical arrangements for facilitating the re-use of the following: (a) existing data and documents held by public sector bodies of the Member States, including certain categories of protected data; (b) existing data and documents held by public undertakings that are: (i) active in the areas referred to in Chapter II of Directive 2014/25/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council; (ii) acting as public service operators pursuant to Article 2 of Regulation (EC) No 1370/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council; (iii) acting as air carriers fulfilling public service obligations pursuant to Article 16 of Regulation (EC) No 1008/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council; or (iv) acting as Community shipowners fulfilling public service obligations pursuant to Article 4 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 3577/92 ; (c) research data pursuant to the conditions set out in Article 32t.

This Chapter does not apply to the following: (a) data and documents the supply of which is an activity falling outside the scope of the public task of the public sector bodies concerned as defined by law or by other binding rules in the Member State, or, in the absence of such rules, as defined in accordance with common administrative practice in the Member State in question, provided that the scope of the public tasks is transparent and subject to review; (b) data and documents held by public undertakings and: (i) produced outside the scope of the provision of services in the general interest as defined by law or other binding rules in the Member State; (ii) related to activities directly exposed to competition and therefore, pursuant to Article 34 of Directive 2014/25/EU, not subject to procurement rules; (c) data and documents, such as sensitive data, which are excluded from access by virtue of the access regimes in the Member State on grounds of the protection of national security (namely, State security), defence, or public security; (d) data and documents held by public service broadcasters and their subsidiaries, and by other bodies or their subsidiaries for the fulfilment of a public service broadcasting remit.

Section 2 of this Chapter does not apply to: (a) data or documents, such as sensitive data or documents, which are excluded from access by virtue of the access regimes in the Member State, including on grounds of: (i) statistical confidentiality; (ii) commercial confidentiality (including business, professional or company secrets); (b) data or documents access to which is restricted by virtue of the access regimes in the Member States, (i) including cases whereby citizens or legal entities have to prove a particular interest to obtain access to documents; (ii) on grounds of protection of personal data, and parts of data or documents accessible by virtue of those regimes which contain personal data the re-use of which has been defined by law as being incompatible with the law concerning the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data or as undermining the protection of privacy and the integrity of the individual, in particular in accordance with Union or national law regarding the protection of personal data; logos, crests and insignia; (c) data or documents for which third parties hold intellectual property rights; (d) data or documents held by cultural establishments other than libraries, including university libraries, museums and archives; (e) data or documents held by educational establishments of secondary level and below, and, in the case of all other educational establishments, data other than those referred to in paragraph 1, point (c); (f) data or documents other than those referred to in paragraph 1, point (c), held by research performing organisations and research funding organisations, including organisations established for the transfer of research results; (g) Data or documents access to which is excluded or restricted on grounds of critical entity or critical infrastructure protection related information as defined in points (1) and (4) of Article 2 of Directive (EU) 2022/2557.

Section 3 of this Chapter does not apply to: (a) data and documents that are not certain categories of protected data; (b) data or documents held by public undertakings; (c) data or documents held by cultural establishments and educational establishments; (d) data and documents covered by Section 2 of this Chapter.

This Chapter builds on, and is without prejudice to, Union and national access regimes, in particular with regard to the granting of access to and disclosure of official documents.

The obligations imposed in accordance with this Chapter shall apply only insofar as they are compatible with the provisions of international agreements on the protection of intellectual property rights, in particular the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Berne Convention), the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement and the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty (WCT).

The right for the maker of a database provided for in Article 7(1) of Directive 96/9/EC shall not be exercised by public sector bodies in order to prevent the re-use of data and documents or to restrict re-use beyond the limits set by this Chapter.

This Chapter governs the re-use of existing data and documents held by public sector bodies and public undertakings of the Member States, including data and documents to which Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council applies.

This Chapter is without prejudice to Union and national law and international agreements to which the Union or Member States are party on the protection of categories of data or documents referred to in Article 2(54).