The EU Data Act: What's It For And What Do I Have To Do?

The EU Data Act came into play on 12th September 2025. The Act applies to EU businesses within the EU and to importers into the EU.

What's the Act about and what should businesses be doing to comply with it?

The EU recognises that businesses and society hold huge volumes of valuable data, both personal and non-personal. The EU wants to make the data more accessible and usable to boost productivity, competitiveness and innovation growth, while doing so in a fair, reasonable and non‑discriminatory (FRAND) way.

What and how?

The Act aims to:

• unlock IoT data for growth: the Act focuses on connected devices which create useful data. The EU wants users to benefit from the data, for example through data-improved aftercare services. The Act permits connected users to access directly device-generated data and share it with third parties;