The Regulation of Access to Personal and Non-Personal Data in the EU: From Bits and Pieces to a System?

For years, the nature of data has influenced the rhetoric used and the priorities set in EU debates about regulating access to data. Interestingly, the scope of the proposal for a Data Act no longer depends on whether data qualify as personal or not. Against this background, the chapter discusses how different types of data and policy objectives become intertwined and how different regimes regulating access to data can be aligned – despite the current piecemeal regulatory approach. We discuss the relationship between the GDPR’s right to data portability and the Data Act’s IoT data access right as well as how forms of data access beyond the initiative and control of individuals can be brought in line with the GDPR.