Discussion Paper on Data Portability: Personal Data Protection Commission In collaboration with Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore

Singapore is studying the introduction of a data portability requirement. As this is a new global development, this paper discusses the impact and benefits of a data portability requirement for business innovation, market competition and consumers. 

Data portability enables individuals to request for a copy of their data held by an organisation in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format, and for the organisation to transmit the data to another organisation.

Data portability involves an overlap between competition law and data protection law. Both perspectives should be taken into consideration when implementing a data portability requirement and determining the optimal approach to reaping maximum benefits from such a requirement while keeping impact and costs manageable.

This Discussion Paper sets out some of the benefits and issues which might arise in competition and data protection law with data portability. The Discussion Paper explains how data portability supports business innovation and drives competition – especially with cross-sectoral implementation – while empowering consumers with greater control over their data. It also provides a framework for data originators, data recipients and consumers to understand and discuss data portability. This includes issues such as how organisations would provide consumers with sufficient information about how ported data will be used and the data recipient’s data protection practices; and the need for interoperability and security standards to reduce friction between data originators and recipients.

A copy of the Discussion Paper can be found here.
The Personal Data Protection Commission's Media Release can be found here.