DA Article 23. Removing obstacles to effective switching

The ability of customers of data processing services, including cloud and edge services, to switch from one data processing service to another while maintaining a minimum functionality of service and without downtime of services, or to use the services of several providers simultaneously without undue obstacles and data transfer costs, is a key condition for a more competitive market with lower entry barriers for new providers of data processing services, and for ensuring further resilience for the users of those services. Customers benefiting from free-tier offerings should also benefit from the provisions for switching that are laid down in this Regulation, so that those offerings do not result in a lock-in situation for customers.

Regulation (EU) 2018/1807 of the European Parliament and of the Council encourages providers of data processing services to develop and effectively implement self-regulatory codes of conduct covering best practices for, inter alia, facilitating the switching of providers of data processing services and the porting of data. Given the limited uptake of the self-regulatory frameworks developed in response, and the general unavailability of open standards and interfaces, it is necessary to adopt a set of minimum regulatory obligations for providers of data processing services to eliminate pre-commercial, commercial, technical, contractual and organisational obstacles, which are not limited to reduced speed of data transfer at the customer’s exit, which hamper effective switching between data processing services.

Digital assets refer to elements in digital form for which the customer has the right of use, including applications and metadata related to the configuration of settings, security, and access and control rights management, and other elements such as manifestations of virtualisation technologies, including virtual machines and containers. Digital assets can be transferred where the customer has the right of use independent of the contractual relationship with the data processing service it intends to switch from. Those other elements are essential for the effective use of the customer’s data and applications in the environment of the destination provider of data processing services.

This Regulation aims to facilitate switching between data processing services, which encompasses conditions and actions that are necessary for a customer to terminate a contract for a data processing service, to conclude one or more new contracts with different providers of data processing services, to port its exportable data and digital assets, and where applicable, benefit from functional equivalence.

Switching is a customer-driven operation consisting of several steps, including data extraction, which refers to the downloading of data from the ecosystem of the source provider of data processing services; transformation, where the data is structured in a way that does not match the schema of the target location; and the uploading of the data in a new destination location. In a specific situation outlined in this Regulation, unbundling of a particular service from the contract and moving it to a different provider should also be considered to be switching. The switching process is sometimes managed on behalf of the customer by a third-party entity. Accordingly, all rights and obligations of the customer established by this Regulation, including the obligation to cooperate in good faith, should be understood to apply to such a third-party entity in those circumstances. Providers of data processing services and customers have different levels of responsibilities, depending on the steps of the process referred to. For instance, the source provider of data processing services is responsible for extracting the data to a machine-readable format, but it is the customer and the destination provider of data processing services who are to upload the data to the new environment, unless a specific professional transition service has been obtained. A customer who intends to exercise rights related to switching, which are provided for in this Regulation, should inform the source provider of data processing services of the decision to either switch to a different provider of data processing services, switch to an on-premises ICT infrastructure or to delete that customer’s assets and erase its exportable data.

Functional equivalence means re-establishing, on the basis of the customer’s exportable data and digital assets, a minimum level of functionality in the environment of a new data processing service of the same service type after switching, where the destination data processing service delivers a materially comparable outcome in response to the same input for shared features supplied to the customer under the contract. Providers of data processing services can only be expected to facilitate functional equivalence for the features that both the source and destination data processing services offer independently. This Regulation does not constitute an obligation to facilitate functional equivalence for providers of data processing services other than those offering services of the IaaS delivery model.

Providers of data processing services should also be required to remove existing obstacles and not impose new ones, including for customers wishing to switch to an on-premises ICT infrastructure. Obstacles can, inter alia, be of a pre-commercial, commercial, technical, contractual or organisational nature. Providers of data processing services should also be required to remove obstacles to unbundling a specific individual service from other data processing services provided under a contract and make the relevant service available for switching, in the absence of major and demonstrated technical obstacles that prevent such unbundling.

To facilitate interoperability and switching between data processing services, users and providers of data processing services should consider the use of implementation and compliance tools, in particular those published by the Commission in the form of an EU Cloud Rulebook and a Guidance on public procurement of data processing services. In particular, standard contractual clauses are beneficial because they increase confidence in data processing services, create a more balanced relationship between users and providers of data processing services and improve legal certainty with regard to the conditions that apply for switching to other data processing services. In that context, users and providers of data processing services should consider the use of standard contractual clauses or other self-regulatory compliance tools provided that they fully comply with this Regulation, developed by relevant bodies or expert groups established under Union law.