European Commission wants to give citizens more control over data with Data Regulation

The European Commission has presented the Data Regulation, which aims to give EU citizens and companies more control over their own data. Users must be able to view this data themselves and companies must give it to other companies, if the user wishes.

According to the European Commission, more and more data is being collected by all kinds of devices, such as wearables and Iot devices, and this data is not being used enough. Industry has a major focus within the Data Regulation; eighty percent of all ‘industrial data’ would never be used, while other parties could offer services with this data, according to the European Commission.

The regulation also focuses on connected devices where the data is now ‘exclusively used by manufacturers’. Under the Data Regulation, users must also be able to access this data. If the user of a product gives permission for this, the manufacturer of the product must also give this data to external companies or organizations. In this way, these external parties can offer new data-driven services, the European Commission believes.

With the Data Regulation, government authorities should also be able to access data that is in the possession of companies, if this is necessary in emergency situations and data is not available in any other way. The Commission mentions floods and forest fires as examples. In this way the Commission says it can react ‘quickly and safely’ while ‘the burden on business’ is kept to a minimum.

Under the regulation, there will also be new rules that should make it easier for customers to switch to another provider of cloud data processing services. These new rules must also guarantee against unlawful data transfer. Small and medium-sized companies also need to be able to negotiate better with large companies when it comes to sharing data. The new rules will not come into effect immediately, the European Parliament must first consider them.