24. Can the protections that Articles 4, 5 and 6 provide for also apply in relation to data made directly available in the sense of [Article 3(1)](/docs/data-act/article-3#paragraph-1)?

Different from the rights under Article 4 and 5, Article 3 does not provide for any statutory law protections of the manufacturer when making data directly available from the connected product. The Data Act allows manufacturers to choose, when designing a connected product (or a related service), whether readily available data can be made accessible by the user directly, indirectly or a combination of both (see Question 14). When making this choice, the protection of trade secrets or the security of the connected product can be a consideration, especially since, in a direct access situation, the manufacturer will be less involved (or not at all) than in an indirect access situation in how a user will exercise their access rights. However, direct access does not mean that it has to be unconditional and can be made subject to contractual conditions that preserve the interests of the manufacturer or the data holder. The manufacturer could e.g. contractually oblige the user to protect certain data that are made directly accessible, in order to ensure the protection of trade secrets, or prohibit certain use cases such as manufacturing of a competing product. Disabling direct access with the Data Act coming into effect based on the considerations in Articles 4(7), 4(8), 5(10) and 5(11) (referred to as the ‘trade secrets handbrake') is not prohibited by the Data Act but is a matter to be negotiated on a contractual basis. Any such contractual conditions cannot undermine the user’s rights, as per Article 7(2) of the Data Act.