Article 32z – Competent bodies

Its wording is printed below, under Article 32z, heading, (1), (2) and (3).

Competent bodies

For the purpose of carrying out the tasks referred to in this Article, each Member State shall designate one or more competent bodies, which may be competent for particular sectors, but that collectively need to cover all sectors, to assist the public sector bodies which grant or refuse access for the re-use of certain categories of protected data. Member States may either establish one or more competent bodies or rely on existing public sector bodies or on internal services of public sector bodies that fulfil the conditions laid down in this Section.

The competent bodies may be empowered to grant access for the re-use of certain categories of protected data pursuant to Union or national law which provides for such access to be granted.

The assistance referred to in paragraph 1 shall include, where necessary:

providing technical support by making available a secure processing environment for providing access for the re-use of certain categories of protected data;

providing guidance and technical support on how to best structure and store certain categories of protected data to make those data easily accessible;

providing technical support for anonymization, pseudonymisation and state-of-the-art privacy-preserving methods, and the commercially confidential information, including trade secrets or content protected by intellectual property rights;

assisting the public sector bodies, where relevant, to provide support to re-users in requesting consent for re-use from data subjects or permission from data holders in line with their specific decisions, including on the jurisdiction in which the data processing is intended to take place and assisting the public sector bodies in establishing technical mechanisms that allow the transmission of requests for consent or permission from re-users, where practically feasible;

providing public sector bodies with assistance in assessing the adequacy of contractual commitments made by a re-user pursuant to Article 32x(2).