Through an initiative under the Digital Services Act (DSA), the European Commission helps qualified researchers access internal data of very large online platforms (VLOPs) and search engines (VLOSEs) in the European Union.
These rules will enable independent research into the systemic risks and mitigation measures of VLOPs and VLOSEs.
Through a delegated act, the Commission is clarifying how VLOPs and VLOSEs should share data with qualified researchers, detailing the legal and technical requirements for data access. It also establishes a new online DSA data access portal for researchers to find information and communicate with VLOPs, VLOSEs, national authorities, and the Digital Services Coordinators (DSCs).
Researchers must be vetted by a DSC to access internal data. On June 27, the Board of Digital Services Coordinators endorsed an intention for further cooperation among all DSCs to uniformly implement the vetting and data access procedures.
The European Parliament and Council now have three months to review the delegated act, which will enter into force at the end of this period, upon publication in the Official Journal. At that time, the first researchers can submit their application to access platforms’ internal data.
This regulation complements the existing DSA obligation for VLOPs and VLOSEs to provide access to researchers to data publicly available on their interfaces.
Read more information about the adoption of the delegated act.
