Data Act: qualifying access to connected machine data

The Data Act allows business users to access, use and share raw data generated by their connected devices. For industrial suppliers, this creates commercial use cases, but requires verification of legal roles, contracts and the technical availability of the data.

Industrial machinery is directly affected

The Commission expressly includes industrial machinery among the products whose data may be covered by the Data Act. Professional users can now access, use and share the raw data generated by their connected equipment. The legislation already applies, making the subject relevant to equipment fleets currently in operation.

Sharing may notably benefit alternative repair or maintenance providers. The user of a connected fleet may therefore seek to transmit certain data to a service provider other than the original manufacturer. This option concerns both the internal use of data and its use by a third-party supplier.

Qualification depends on each stakeholder's role

The application of the Data Act cannot be inferred solely from the presence of a connected machine. The manufacturer, data holder and user must be identified, followed by an assessment of each party's role. The applicable provisions and contracts must be reviewed on the basis of this allocation.

Qualification must also cover the relevant product, territory and activity. Out-of-scope situations must be excluded before any commercial approach. The available information does not establish a uniform legal threshold for automatically compiling a list of accounts.

The right of access must correspond to an economic use

Theoretical access to data is not enough to create a project. The supplier must identify a specific use case, for example for maintenance, data integration or analysis of a connected installed base. It must then verify that the necessary data is technically available and usable.

Several categories of suppliers may be involved. These may include an independent maintenance provider, a data integrator, a software provider or a supplier of analytics solutions. Their proposition must connect the available data to an identifiable operational outcome for the user.

Objections limit commercial reach

Some data may be difficult to use, already accessible or lacking operational value. Its availability therefore guarantees neither improved maintenance nor interest in an analytics solution. The protection of trade secrets may also restrict the options under consideration.

The user may also prefer to continue working with the original manufacturer despite this new right. An applicable rule demonstrates neither the existence of an active project nor that of a budget. Prospecting must therefore distinguish the regulatory signal from a confirmed intention to buy.

What this changes for suppliers

The Data Act provides a specific reason to contact operators of connected asset fleets. We recommend targeting companies based on ICPs and campaign-specific filters, rather than on an assumed legal threshold. The initial discussion should cover the equipment concerned, the data generated, access conditions and the provider currently responsible for managing it.

We then qualify four points: the technical availability of the data, the contract in place, the legal role of each party and the business use case. This method allows us to exclude accounts that are out of scope or have no operational need. It also helps maintenance providers, integrators, software vendors and analytics providers focus their outreach on users who are able and willing to share their data.