Data Navigator: A Data Act start-up.

The topic of episode 41 of the Data Navigator podcast is the perspective of a start-up whose business model is directly based on the Data Act. Our guest is Philip Schütz, founder of Data Revolution and also a data protection expert at Mercedes-Benz. Philip brings an unusual combination of skills to the table: as a political scientist, he provided academic support for the legislative process of the GDPR at Fraunhofer and subsequently worked in data protection within companies. The idea to found Data Revolution arose from his academic engagement with the Data Act as part of a commentary project on EU digital legislation.

We learn exactly what Data Revolution does: the tech start-up acts as an intermediary between data owners and data users, processing the raw data required to be disclosed under the Data Act and making it usable for data users – from analysis and visualisation to integration into existing business processes. In addition, the start-up offers SMEs support with Data Act compliance from the data owner’s perspective.

A key focus of the episode is on practical experiences from the agritech and vehicle data sectors. Philip reports first-hand: at one tractor manufacturer, 750 data types were available as CSV downloads – but real-time access via an API was refused on the grounds of a lack of infrastructure. Another major manufacturer does provide an API, but only supplies five data types. In the vehicle data sector, meanwhile, real-time access costs between 20 and 30 euros per vehicle per month – a sum that can nip innovative business models in the bud.

We discuss in detail why the Data Act has not yet taken hold in the market: many companies perceive it more as a regulatory brake than as an enabler. Even in the start-up scene, hardly anyone is familiar with the Data Act. Philip also describes how his team deals with issues such as confidentiality and the protection of trade secrets – particularly in a B2B context, customers expect their data to remain under their control.

In conclusion, Philip sets out clear demands: the Federal Network Agency, as the future supervisory authority, must consistently pursue cases of non-compliance.