Taking Back Control in the Digital Age

In today’s data-driven economy, Europe’s competitiveness and industrial resilience depend on the critical ability to share and use data securely and efficiently across sectors.

COP-PILOT aims to enable and facilitate this ambition through a Collaborative Open Platform (‘COP’) that connects organisations with multiple sensors from multiple vendors, along with other connected products and data sources across various use cases and scenarios, to build a more trusted and resilient digital ecosystem.

The COP aims to enable secure, interoperable, and transparent data flows across domains such as energy, mobility, and mining. By linking connected products and services, edge and cloud infrastructures – and making sense of sensing – it strengthens Europe’s digital sovereignty and industrial resilience while supporting the goals of the Digital Decade 2030 [1] and the Competitiveness Compass [2].

The COP-PILOT project also helps operationalise the Data Act [3] by demonstrating how connected product data and related service information (Articles 3 to 5 of Regulation (EU) 2023/2854) can be shared under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory conditions. This contributes to Europe’s wider ambition, outlined in the Draghi [4] and Letta [5] Competitiveness Compass reports, for once to advance a Clean Industrial Deal [6] combining innovation, sustainability, and strategic autonomy.

In parallel, COP-PILOT aligns with the current Call for Evidence for Public Procurement Reform [7], which promotes sustainability, resilience, and a stronger European preference in public investment. Data-driven platforms like the one developed by COP-PILOT can make procurement more strategic and innovation-oriented through transparency and interoperability.

Although these policy initiatives and regulations are not explicitly cited in the project’s Grant Agreement, COP-PILOT clearly contributes to their shared vision: turning connected data into trusted, value-creating ecosystems through its COP, a foundation for data-empowered, resilient industries.

From lost control to empowerment

For more than half a century, the power of data rested in the hands of intermediaries. Industrial, environmental, and consumer data were often locked away or exploited without fair value-sharing. The Data Act breaks that pattern. It represents a paradigm shift from exclusive ownership to shared access, from opaque processing to transparent value distribution, and from data concentration to data empowerment.

The Message is Clear

Now the right to use, access, and share data belongs to those who generate it.

At the core of the regulation lies the Data Act Triangle, connecting:

1. the Customer or User, as the source and ultimate beneficiary of data;
2. the Data Holder, typically the organisation that generates or manages it; and
3. the Data Recipient, a trusted third party authorised by the user for lawful, agreed-upon purposes.

Mandatory data-sharing contracts now link these actors, ensuring interoperability, fairness and respect for confidentiality. The goal is not to force openness, but to enable trusted access, data sharing built on clarity and consent.

From Act to Action

Empowerment does not happen automatically; it requires both mindset and action.
Data cannot be monopolised, it is omnipresent and relevant across every field of policymaking: energy, transport, health, environment, and industry. Recognising this means treating data not as a by-product, but as a strategic asset and shared resource.

The question is no longer ‘Can I access my data?’ but ‘Now that I can, what do I do with it?’

In COP-PILOT, this empowerment takes tangible form.

1. A mobility operator combines vehicle telemetry with environmental data to redesign routes, lowering emissions and improving safety.
2. Logistics partners share anonymised performance metrics to optimise deliveries while preserving commercial confidentiality.

Both examples illustrate that data gains value only through context and collaboration when shared with purpose, proportionality, and trust. Turning regulation into empowerment requires a bridge between law and practice. The Data Act creates that bridge through a simple logic:

ACT → ACTIONABLES → ACTION

1. ACT: The Data Act defines the empowerment (and related rights and obligations).
2. ACTIONABLES: The Model Contractual Clauses for data sharing make that empowement (and related right and obligations) possible.
3. ACTION: Now it is up to you, your organisation and your partners to bring the Act and Actionables into action, for your benefit and the benefit of your stakeholders and society at large.

First comes the framework, then the tools, and finally the practice, where rights become reality and compliance becomes collaboration.

Thus, from policy to practice, from rights to results. And while the Commission is finalising those tools, organizations can already prepare by following three simple principles:

1. Map your data relationships. Know who holds, uses, and receives data in your ecosystem.
2. Adopt interoperability by design. Build openness and compatibility into your systems from the start and future-proof your systems and governance.
3. Leverage the Model Contractual Clauses for Data Sharing (MCTs). Now released (only in English for now) [9], the MCTs are the actionables for implementing the empowerment the Data Act gives, and will be your fast track to fair, compliant, and cross-border data collaboration.

From Policy to Practice

Data empowerment is not an end in itself, but the foundation of a resilient, competitive, and sustainable Europe. The Project COP-PILOT Collaborative Open Platform demonstrates how regulation, technology, and governance converge to turn this vision into tangible practice.

By enabling secure and interoperable data sharing across sectors, COP-PILOT translates the Data Act into real-world operation and supports the Digital Decade 2030. It shows how connected-device data, when managed responsibly through a trusted platform, strengthens Europe’s industrial autonomy [10] and contributes to the objectives of the Clean Industrial Deal.

This same approach extends to public procurement, where transparent, data-driven platforms can make spending more strategic, sustainable, and aligned with European interests.

In essence, COP-PILOT embodies the next phase of Europe’s data economy, built on trust, interoperability, and resilience. Through its Collaborative Open Platform, the project delivers a practical implementation of the Data Act, reinforcing Europe’s objectives for interoperability, resilience, and industrial competitiveness under the Digital Decade 2030 and Clean Industrial Deal frameworks.

Ultimately, COP-PILOT helps Europe make sense of sensing, turning the vast streams of data from countless sensors into insight, trust, and resilience.

The Data Act has given back control. Now it is time to take it, and the choice is ours.

November 2025. Updated Blog by ARTHUR (Arthur’s Legal, Strategies & Systems), consortium partner of the Project COP-PILOT.

The original blog, which was published before the publication of the Data Union Strategy and the publications of the Recommendation, can be found here: https://cop-pilot.eu/2025/11/14/making-sense-of-multi-sensing/

[1] Decision (EU) 2022/2481, Digital Decade Policy Programme 2030, Decision - 2022/2481 - EN - EUR-Lex

[2] Commission (2024), Competitiveness Compass: European Competitiveness Council Initiative, Competitiveness compass - Commission

Commission, Data Union Strategy (upcoming), Shaping Europe’s digital future | Shaping Europe’s digital future

[3] Regulation (EU) 2023/2854 (Data Act),  Regulation - EU - 2023/2854 - EN - EUR-Lex

[4] Mario Draghi (2024), The Future of European Competitiveness: Report to the Commission, The Draghi report on EU competitiveness

[5] Enrico Letta (2024), Much More Than a Market: Report on the Future of the Single Market, Enrico Letta's Report on the Future of the Single Market - Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

[6] Commission (2025), Clean Industrial Deal: Communication COM(2025) 92 final, ‘A Clean Industrial Deal for the EU: Turning Decarbonisation into a Driver of Competitiveness’, Clean Industrial Deal - Commission

[7] Commission (2025), Call for Evidence for an Impact Assessment on Public Procurement Reform (Ares (2025) 9425851), EUR-Lex - Ares(2025)9425851 - EN - EUR-Lex

[8] Commission (2025), European Data Union Strategy, https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/data-union-strategy-unlocking-data-ai

[9] Commission (2025), Recommendation with Model Contractual Terms (MCTs) and Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) regarding the Data Act, https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/draft-recommendation-non-binding-model-contractual-terms-data-access-and-use-and-non-binding

[10] Commission (2023), Updated EU Industrial Strategy, COM (2021) 350 final, EUR-Lex - 52021DC0350 - EN - EUR-Lex