Members of the public would have the right to download data from their electric cars and smart appliances, under a new Bill to democratise access to data which will be considered by ministers this week.
Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke will bring forward the general scheme of a Data Bill to Cabinet this week, which will be amalgamated into the Regulation of AI Bill.
The Data Bill is how the Irish Government will implement an European regulation called the EU Data Act.
While the volume of valuable data that has been created by humans and machines has increased exponentially over the last number of years, a lot of this data is retained by a very small number of companies.
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Data collected by the Internet of Things, physical devices that are connected to the internet, is often not accessible even to the ordinary members of the public whose data it is.
The EU Data Act was designed to clarify who can access such data and when it should be shared. The legislation is expected to have an impact on the ways that members of the public use smart appliances. This Act came into force on January 11th, 2024, and became applicable across the EU from September of this year.
At the moment, products like electric cars or washing machines that can connect to smartphones or apps may collect data which is only shared with the product manufacturer.
It means that if or when the product or car needs to be repaired, it can only be done by the official manufacturer.
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The Data Bill would mean members of the public should be able to migrate data with minimum barriers, which would mean data from their appliances should be available to download either directly from the machine or from an app, free of charge.
The new legislation would also mean manufacturers of electric cars or smart appliances would be required to share a person’s data with an independent repair service, at the request of the machine’s owner.
It is also recognised that smaller companies have been disadvantaged by the way that larger corporations have retained and not shared valuable data, and the fact that an estimated 80 per cent of industrial data created in the EU is never used.
The EU Data Act is designed to create a single market for data and to stop big companies from unfairly dominating markets through their use of data shared with them.
The Irish Government has set a target to have 90 per cent of all SMEs at “basic digital intensity” by 2030 - which means businesses are able to use at least four of 12 digital tools like fast broadband, AI or e-commerce.
Mr Burke is also aiming to have 75 per cent of enterprises in Ireland adopt cloud, AI and big data by 2030 as part of a strategy to make them more competitive.
Under the Bill, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) would become responsible for business to Government data sharing. Communications providers would also be responsible for paying a new levy to Comreg, to cover the higher costs of regulating cloud providers.
The EU Data Act also requires those holding data to prevent it from being illegally transferred outside of the EU to third country governments. Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan will work with Mr Burke on deciding which Irish authority should be responsible for this.
