Il diritto alla portabilità dei dati: tra diritti della persona e diritti del mercato

The General Data Protection Regulation (UE) 2016/679 extended the number of European citizens’ rights with a new one: the data portability right. Article 20 of the Regulation, indeed, recognizes the right of data subjects to receive the personal data concerning him or her, which he or she has provided to a controller, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and the right to transmit those data to another controller without hindrance from the controller to which the personal data have been provided. This right, born in response to a need to deal with the digital world practice to hamper users migration to other providers through technological lock-in, will be applicable to all the processing carried out by automated means based on data subject consent or on the execution of a contract and it is presumed to have a disruptive effect on online services market. Therefore, this work is aimed to examine the fundamental aspects of such a right with particular reference to the clarifications given by the Guidelines of Article 29 Data Protection Working Party and to the possible impact of the provision on competition.