From 12 September 2026, the machine has to hand over its data

The Data Act is mostly discussed in connection with cloud switching. For manufacturers the other half matters more, and it has just acquired a date.

Since 12 September 2025, users of connected products have had a right to the data generated in use — and the right to have it passed to a third party. For connected products placed on the market after 12 September 2026, a design obligation comes on top: the data must be accessible by default, easily, securely, in machine-readable form and, where technically feasible, directly.

That is the end of the proprietary interface as a business model — at least for everything newly brought to market from that date.

Why this is more than a legal question

Operating data, running times, fault patterns, wear curves: whoever can read them can plan maintenance themselves, compare offers and run the asset better across its life. Whoever cannot stays with the manufacturer — not out of conviction, but for lack of data.

That is Vendor lock-in in its oldest form. Here it does not arise from a contract but from an interface nobody but the manufacturer can read.

The access right also covers equipment already installed on your shop floor. The design obligation applies to new products; the access right applies to the existing estate. The question is not whether you have it, but whether you exercise it.

Three sentences for the next purchase contract

First: what data the product generates is listed before signing. Not as "operating data", but specifically, with designation, capture interval and storage location.

Second: access is continuous, in a common machine-readable format, without extra charge for the standard case — and without a detour through a manufacturer portal that can be changed at any time.

Third: passing data to a third party of your choosing is expressly permitted, including the technical means to do so. That is the sentence that later decides your freedom of choice in maintenance.

These three sentences cost nothing before purchase. Afterwards they are almost unobtainable.

The topic's twin: remote maintenance

In many manufacturing businesses there is a permanent connection from outside into the plant. It sits in the maintenance contract, it is sensible — a machine that stops on Friday evening is repaired on Saturday rather than Tuesday — and usually nobody has looked at it in years.

The questions a maintenance contract should answer and rarely does:

Is the access permanently open, or enabled per incident? The difference between "the tunnel is up" and "we enable it for the job" is the entire difference.

Is there a log of who did what and when — and do you get that log, or only the manufacturer?

What data leaves during normal operation, and where does it go?

Who holds the credentials at the manufacturer: a named department, or a shared account unchanged for years?

And what happens to the access when the maintenance contract ends?

The concrete first step

Ask for the list of all existing remote access paths. Not from IT — from the maintenance manager. The two lists nearly always differ, and the difference is the actual finding.

Then use the upcoming contract renewal or the next machine purchase to settle both topics together: data access and remote access. They are technically linked and are nevertheless almost always negotiated separately, by two different people who do not talk to each other.