The opportunities and limits of data portability for stimulating competition and innovation

Data portability has a hybrid nature. What emerged as a data protection concept is now also becoming part of policies aiming to stimulate competition and innovation. To reap the full benefits of data portability, this article argues that there is a need for regulators to steer its implementation and to provide guidance on how data controllers should handle tensions between different interests and overlapping legal entitlements. Data portability can empower individuals and business users to make better choices but more asymmetric enforcement is needed to ensure that data portability will stimulate competition. And as a tool to promote data-driven innovation, data portability is a necessary but probably not a sufficient condition to keep data-driven markets open to newcomers.