Navigate the EU Market with Confidence: Understanding the Data Act & GDPR
The EU Data Act arrives in 2025 with new obligations for connected products, IoT services, and digital platforms. Compliance never replaces GDPR—you must satisfy both frameworks to protect personal data and guarantee fair, transparent data sharing.
GDPR protects personal data like names, IP addresses, and behavioural profiles.
The Data Act extends rights to all user-generated data, including non-personal datasets, and enforces fair access, portability, and interoperability.
What Is the EU Data Act?
The Data Act is central to the EU vision for a fair, open, and competitive data economy. It introduces obligations that reshape how connected products share and monetise data across partners and ecosystems.
Whenever personal data is present, GDPR remains fully applicable. The Data Act complements those safeguards instead of replacing them.
What the regulation expects from you
Give users control over data generated by connected products such as smart appliances, vehicles, and industrial equipment.
Provide mandatory data sharing with third parties when users request it—without discrimination or technical barriers.
Offer standardised, interoperable interfaces such as open APIs to enable safe reuse across the ecosystem.
Apply fair contract terms for B2B data sharing and ensure cloud portability without vendor lock-in.
Key Technical & Governance Requirements
Meeting both the Data Act and GDPR means combining privacy-by-design with robust data-sharing capabilities across your architecture.
Real-World Example: Smart Appliances in Europe
Launching connected devices in the EU means aligning your product, data flows, and support teams with both regulations from day one.
Classify every dataset
Determine which signals are personal versus non-personal to know when GDPR applies.
Enable user data portability
Offer secure exports or third-party sharing via standard interfaces on demand.
Implement EU-aligned encryption
Encrypt device-to-cloud data flows and govern keys with EU-compliant controls.
Apply data minimisation
Avoid collecting unnecessary signals unless you have a lawful basis under GDPR.
Maintain full audit logs
Capture who accessed data, when, and why to satisfy requests and inspections.
Adopt open, documented APIs
Let partners read device data without proprietary barriers to meet interoperability mandates.
Why You Need a Professional Compliance Solution
Legal, engineering, and operational expertise must work together to address every requirement without gaps.
Joint Data Act + GDPR impact assessments
Identify overlaps, conflicts, and remediation actions across both regulations.
Data mapping and classification
Differentiate personal vs. non-personal data and document lawful bases.
Secure architecture and key management design
Design encryption, anonymisation, and key custody aligned with EU expectations.
User rights fulfilment workflows
Automate access, export, deletion, and portability responses across teams.
Audit-ready logging and access controls
Implement monitoring that proves compliance during regulatory inspections.
Compliance documentation packages
Deliver privacy notices, DPAs, and data-sharing terms ready for stakeholders.
Ready to enter the EU market with full confidence?
Our specialists help you operationalise Data Act and GDPR requirements so you can launch, scale, and audit with clarity.