Article 5 — Obligation for the Public Body to Make Data Accessible to the User

Legal Provision

Obligation for the public body to make data accessible to the user: establishes the requirement for public sector bodies as data holders under laid out conditions to the user.

Scope

Applies to data holders (public sector bodies who have the obligation or the ability to make the data available).

Requirement type

Duty: when data held by public sector bodies must be made available by the public sector body acting as a data holder at the request of the user.

Actions to demonstrate compliance

A. Binary (yes/no): if these elements are present, there is evidence towards demonstrating compliance.

• Existence of a data access mechanism.
• Written procedure to handle access requests.
• Access logging and monitoring mechanisms.
• If special categories of data are involved, existence of confidentiality and data protection safeguards (e.g. anonymisation, disclosure controls, confidentiality obligations).

B. Non-binary (require a contextual assessment): building on the binary actions, a contextual assessment of these points is required.

• Ability to provide relevant historical data where appropriate and legally permissible.
• Delivery of data in a structured, comprehensible, and usable format.
• Adequate response time records for handling re-use requests.
• Fairness and transparency of refusal decision and access conditions.

Monitoring requirement

• Monitoring of the effectivity of the framework (e.g., data protection, confidentiality , and access control safeguards).

Consequences of non-compliance

• Penalty determined by Member State.