The Data Act — Regulation (EU) 2023/2854 — entered into force on 12 September 2025. It is less well-known than GDPR or the AI Act, but for organisations considering a migration from cloud to local AI, it may be the most directly useful law in the entire regulatory package.
The Data Act addresses three problems Europe identified as growing: data staying with manufacturers rather than users, cloud providers making departure artificially difficult, and the absence of a legal framework for emergency government access to private data. This article focuses on the second problem — the one most relevant to you as a business owner.
What Is It Actually About?
Imagine you have been using a cloud platform for your business data for years. You want to switch to a different provider, or to a local solution. But your current provider makes it difficult: technical barriers, high export fees, data in a format no one else can read. You are trapped.
That is vendor lock-in. And the Data Act prohibits it.
Article 25(2) states explicitly that cloud providers may not impose commercial, technical, contractual or organisational barriers on customers that prevent or discourage switching. Not as a contract clause, not as a technical design choice, not as a hidden cost.
Your Right to Your Own Data
Articles 4 and 5 of the Data Act establish that as a user, you have the right to the data generated by your use of a product or service. Free of charge. In a usable format. Without unnecessary delay.
This applies to SaaS platforms: the data you have entered, generated and stored in a cloud application over the years belongs to you. You can request it. You can transfer it to another service or a local system. The provider is obliged to cooperate.
In practice — today, before you migrate — you can invoke the Data Act to export your historical data. Conversations, documents, analyses, configurations: everything you have generated is legally enforceable as a data access request.
The Data Act does not merely make leaving the cloud possible. It makes it legally enforceable.
No Switching Costs — From January 2027
Article 29 of the Data Act prohibits cloud providers from charging customers for the switching process. This prohibition takes full effect from 12 January 2027.
Until then, providers may still charge switching costs — but they may not artificially inflate those costs to discourage departure. After January 2027, those costs disappear entirely.
What that means in practice: egress fees — the charges some cloud providers levy for downloading your own data — will no longer be permitted as part of a switching process. The market is changing. The exit becomes cheaper.
Functional Equivalence: No Sabotage of Your Migration
Article 26 of the Data Act requires cloud providers to actively cooperate in ensuring a successful transition. The target service — your new platform or local system — must be able to offer at least the same functional level as the source service.
If a cloud provider exports data in a format your new system cannot read, that is a violation of the Data Act. If the migration is technically sabotaged through deliberately incompatible exports, that is a violation of the Data Act. The law does not only protect you legally — it imposes an active cooperation obligation on the provider.
Who Does the Data Act Apply To?
The Data Act has a broad scope. It applies to:
- Manufacturers of connected products — smart devices, IoT sensors, industrial machinery, medical equipment, vehicles
- Providers of data processing services — cloud providers, data centres, SaaS companies
- Business users of connected products — companies wanting to access data generated by their devices
If you use cloud services — for storage, software, or AI tools — you fall under the protective provisions of the Data Act as a user. You do not need to comply with obligations. You have rights you can enforce.
Three Steps You Can Take Today
1. Inventory your cloud dependencies
Which cloud platforms hold business-critical data? What do your contracts say about data ownership, export and termination? This is the starting point for any migration.
2. Request a data export
You already have the right to request your data today. Do it periodically — not only when you want to leave. A current export of your data is both a backup and proof of ownership.
3. Plan your transition before January 2027
The elimination of switching costs takes effect on 12 January 2027. If you are considering migrating to local AI or a different cloud, you have the coming months to plan it well — and then leave without extra cost.
The Data Act is the law that limits the market power of cloud providers. It gives you as a user the instruments to break through that power. That is rare in technology legislation. Use it.