Position Statement of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition of 26 April 2017 on the European Commission’s 'Public consultation on Building the European Data Economy'

Abstract

This Position Statement responds to the Communication of 10 January 2017 by which the European Commission launched a public consultation on the future legal framework for data-driven markets that emerge in the course of the current digitization of industrial production and the advent of smart products in which sensors are embedded. In particular, the Position Statement comments the Commission’s ideas on a possible future data producer’s right as a means of promoting access to data. While the Max Plank Institute agrees that there are indeed instances where there is a need to “unlock data”, it rejects a data producer’s right. Rather, the Institute recommends considering more targeted data access rights that would specifically react to situations in which a manufacturer of smart products would otherwise try to reserve related markets for itself. The Max Planck Institute thereby takes inspiration from the data portability right that has already been implemented as part of the Basic Data Protection Regulation. Moreover, general principles on the design of data access regimes are developed. In sum, the Max Planck Institute favours a sector-specific approach to the introduction of a general data access right or a generally applicable data access regime. Sector-specific rules are especially needed for answering more concrete questions such as regarding the person entitled to claim access or the one of whether a data holder should be remunerated for granting access to data.

Keywords: European law, data-driven economy, smart products, data ownership, data producer’s right, access to data, data portability.