Recital 8

While the importance of data intermediation services is recognised in the context of many initiatives supporting data sharing and collaboration, the rules of Regulation (EU) 2022/868 on data intermediation service providers should be clarified. In particular, the definition of such providers should be made more precise. It should eliminate elements that served merely as illustrative examples, rather than exceptions. Moreover, it should address loopholes resulting from ambiguous formulations, notably as regards the notion of ‘closed group’. Services should not be eligible to register as data intermediation services where they are exclusively used by a closed group of companies and where any extension of that group of companies can only be decided by that group and not the service provider. More importantly, making this emerging market subject to a compulsory regime has created unnecessary compliance costs. At this stage of market development, a voluntary regime, allowing neutral players to distinguish themselves from other players, appears sufficient. Also, in order to enable sustainable business models, the regime should be made less strict by abolishing the requirement for a legal separation between data intermediation services and other value-added services that a data intermediation service provider should be allowed to offer, replacing it with a functional separation while keeping certain safeguards. The administrative monitoring regime should be simplified. Instead of national and a Union public register for data intermediation services providers and data altruism organisations, there should only be Union public registers, namely one for data intermediation service providers and another for data altruism organisations. Competent authorities overseeing the award of the label and the compliance of the entities with the requirements for obtaining it should be independent in this task. This should be understood to mean that they are legally and functionally independent from a data intermediation service or data altruism organisation, including at the level of their top-management. It should be possible for government organisations to financially support data intermediation services or data altruism organisations, in particular given the emerging nature of these entities, provided that they are legally separate entities. In order to ensure that recognised entities are easily identifiable throughout the Union, the Commission established Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1622 .