DGA Article 3. Categories of data

The categories of data held by public sector bodies which should be subject to re-use under this Regulation fall outside the scope of Directive (EU) 2019/1024 that excludes data which is not accessible due to commercial and statistical confidentiality and data that is included in works or other subject matter over which third parties have intellectual property rights. Commercially confidential data includes data protected by trade secrets, protected know-how and any other information the undue disclosure of which would have an impact on the market position or financial health of the undertaking. This Regulation should apply to personal data that fall outside the scope of Directive (EU) 2019/1024 insofar as the access regime excludes or restricts access to such data for reasons of data protection, privacy and the integrity of the individual, in particular in accordance with data protection rules. The re-use of data, which may contain trade secrets, should take place without prejudice to Directive (EU) 2016/943, which sets out the framework for the lawful acquisition, use or disclosure of trade secrets.

This Regulation should not create an obligation to allow the re-use of data held by public sector bodies. In particular, each Member State should therefore be able to decide whether data is made accessible for re-use, also in terms of the purposes and scope of such access. This Regulation should complement and be without prejudice to more specific obligations on public sector bodies to allow re-use of data laid down in sector-specific Union or national law. Public access to official documents may be considered to be in the public interest. Taking into account the role of public access to official documents and transparency in a democratic society, this Regulation should also be without prejudice to Union or national law on granting access to and disclosing official documents. Access to official documents may in particular be granted in accordance with national law without imposing specific conditions or by imposing specific conditions that are not provided by this Regulation.

The re-use regime provided for in this Regulation should apply to data the supply of which forms part of the public tasks of the public sector bodies concerned under law or other binding rules in the Member States. In the absence of such rules, the public tasks should be defined in accordance with common administrative practice in the Member States, provided that the scope of the public tasks is transparent and subject to review. The public tasks could be defined generally or on a case-by-case basis for individual public sector bodies. As public undertakings are not covered by the definition of public sector body, the data held by public undertakings should not be covered by this Regulation. Data held by cultural establishments, such as libraries, archives and museums as well as orchestras, operas, ballets and theatres, and by educational establishments should not be covered by this Regulation since the works and other documents they hold are predominantly covered by third party intellectual property rights. Research-performing organisations and research-funding organisations could also be organised as public sector bodies or bodies governed by public law.