This guide serves as the first point of reference for all those who have to comply with or apply the Data Governance Act ('DGA'). Tightly structured within a clear framework it provides an overall view of the DGA as well as offering more detailed information on the individual articles. It goes further, addressing pressing follow up questions such as legal protection. This will be invaluable to companies, public authorities, and consultants as well as courts and research institutions coming to grips with the DGA.

As part of the European Commission's broader data strategy, the Data Governance Act (“DGA”) introduces a new regulatory regime for data intermediaries, which, inter alia, pursues the objective of increasing the competitiveness of the European data economy by bolstering trust in data-sharing mechanisms. Against this backdrop, we introduce data intermediaries and critically examine the DGA's related legal regime by testing its underlying assumptions and highlighting its intrinsic weaknesses and limitations as part of the broader EU data law puzzle. As a result, the paper brings to the fore certain contradictions between DGA's means and ends. Indeed, due to various questionable assumptions, the DGA imposes requirements that not all data intermediaries can satisfy and entrenches a specific techno-organisational form for data intermediation services that may turn out to be economically non-viable. Consequently, one must wonder whether the DGA's rules on data intermediaries are necessary and proportionate in light of the freedom to conduct a business. We furthermore uncover inconsistencies and loopholes between the DGA, the GDPR, the draft Data Act, and the Digital Markets Act. Overall, while the DGA's underlying efforts are laudable, its precise postulations may hinder the achievement of its underlying objectives due to two main factors. First its own internal limitations and incoherences, and, second, uncertainties and tensions resulting from its interplay with the broader EU data law framework.

Following its approval by the European Parliament in April 2022, the Data Governance Act (DGA) is the first legislative instrument within the European Data Strategy to come into force. Aimed at facilitating the re-use and sharing of data in and between the private and public sectors, the DGA introduces regulation for a newly emerging type of business entity - the so-called “providers of data intermediation services”. In order to offer their services on the market, businesses will have to submit to a prior notification procedure and show compliance with several conditions placed on their economic activities. The regulation of data intermediaries is intended to increase their trustworthiness and ensure the competitiveness of the markets in which they operate.Recent experiences with digital platforms have shown the potential of intermediaries to organise and facilitate markets. At the same time, digital platforms pose undeniable risks to their users and markets at large. Against this backdrop, the role of data intermediaries as envisioned by the DGA must be examined carefully before turning to the question whether the DGA can achieve competitive and trustworthy data sharing through registered third parties. This paper intends to shed light on these and other issues by examining, in-depth, the chapter in the DGA dedicated to data intermediaries (Art. 10-15) from a legal, policy and competition economics perspective. In particular, this paper explores how the experiences made with large-scale digital platforms have shaped the DGA. Thereby, this paper aims to contribute towards a holistic understanding of these provisions as a basis for an informed discussion on the legal framework and on possible alternatives.

In accordance with the European strategy for data, the European Union (EU) aims to enhance the free flow of data and increase trust in data sharing mechanisms within the internal market. This ambition, however, contrasts with the EU's more 'protective' approach to the governance of cross-border data flows. The high standard of data protection in the EU has resulted in a number of restrictions on transfers of personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA). This article explores whether and to what extent the data protection rationale impacts EU law-making on international transfers of protected non-personal data. To do so it establishes divergences and convergences between the legal design of cross-border data transfers under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Governance Act (DGA). It also critically engages with the phenomenon of GDPR mimesis, according to which new EU regulatory initiatives for technology and digital life imitate the regulatory system established by the GDPR. This article argues that EU rules on non-personal data transfers have some similarities with the GDPR international data transfers regime but that the resemblance should not be overstated. The article critically assesses GDPR mimesis as a new regulatory phenomenon and, paradoxically, provides reasons why it has benefits.

This commentary provides an expert guide to the Act, giving an authoritative and rigorous overview of its reach and scope. The Data Governance Act (DGA) allows for increased access to data. Specifically it harmonises the conditions for the re-use of public sector data which is subject to certain third-party rights, it establishes a framework for private data sharing services that allows users impart personal data, and it introduces a framework for data sharing for altruistic purposes.

These two volumes collect twenty five articles and papers published within the “Governance of/through Data” research project financed by the Italian Ministry of Universities. The research project, which was promoted by Roma Tre University, as project lead, and saw the participation of professors and reseachers from Bocconi University in Milan; LUMSA University in Rome; Salento University in Lecce and Turin Polytechnic, cover multiple issues which are here presented in five sections: Algorithms and artificial intelligence; Antitrust, artificial intelligence and data; Big Data; Data governance; Data protection and privacy.