Data Navigator: The Data Act as a threat to trade secrets

In episode 42 of the Data Navigator podcast, we speak to Dominik Ebeling, Head of Data Governance at Rolls-Royce Power Systems, about whether and how trade secrets might be embedded in IoT sensor data, and what this means for claims under the Data Act.

Specifically, we discuss:

• the right balance between data access and innovation protection,
• the fridge example: how a product’s control logic can be deduced from a temperature-time series,
• reverse engineering via data versus via hardware: why the effort involved is a decisive protective factor,
• a practical categorisation of sensor data into four levels, ranging from environmental variables to the protected core of innovation,
• the engine manufacturer’s assessment that at least two-thirds of sensor data is entirely uncritical for disclosure,
• The Omnibus, the Federal Network Agency and the call not to abandon the compromise between data sharing and the protection of trade secrets.