Research opportunity · Who can know about AI? Epistemic dependence and jurisdiction over the field
Does the EU's researcher-access law actually reach AI features, and who gets in?
Question
Under Article 40 of the Digital Services Act, which vetted-researcher applications concerning AI features of very large platforms are granted, refused or delayed, on what grounds, and how long does each stage take?
Institutional practice unknownOne PhD chapter or paperLow to medium costPartly addressed
Why it matters
The position that access law can restore independence (P3) rests on a regime that was adopted in July 2025 and had, by May 2026, received 49 applications with no reported grant. Whether it works for AI features, and for which researchers, is an open question about practice, not about the text of the law. A record of outcomes would test P3 directly.
The debate lists this among what we still do not know: Will Article 40 access be granted in practice, and does it reach AI features?
Evidence that motivates it
- On 2 July 2025 the European Commission adopted a delegated act on data access under the Digital Services Act that lets vetted researchers obtain internal data from very large online platforms and search engines to study systemic risks; applicants must show affiliation to a research organisation, “independence from commercial interests” and the ability to keep the data secure.
The delegated act adopted on 2 July 2025 sets the conditions for vetted-researcher access. - As of 19 May 2026, national Digital Services Coordinators had received 49 applications for vetted-researcher access under the Digital Services Act, mostly for social-media data and on risks including illegal content, advertising transparency and “AI features”; the coordinators were assessing the applications, and their update reported no access granted.
49 applications by 19 May 2026, some on AI features, none reported granted. - On 5 December 2025 the European Commission fined X €120 million under the Digital Services Act, in part for failing to give researchers access to public data: X’s terms of service prohibited eligible researchers from independently accessing its public data, including by scraping.
A platform fined in part for blocking researcher access to public data. - On 16 July 2026 the European Commission accepted X’s action plan, under which X will speed up screening of researchers’ applications, give eligible researchers access to public data free of charge and stop contractually prohibiting them from scraping.
The accepted action plan promises faster screening and free access to public data.
A possible design
Build a tracker of Article 40 applications from national coordinators' reports, freedom-of-information requests and a survey of applicant researchers, coding topic (with AI features as a category), platform, applicant institution and country, stage dates, outcome and stated grounds. Repeat yearly and compare with access to public data under the X action plan.
Data needed
Coordinator and Commission reports; access-to-documents requests to national Digital Services Coordinators; a researcher survey with consent to report outcomes.
Feasibility
One PhD chapter or paper. Low to medium; mostly researcher time and translation. Applicants may not report refusals; coordinators may withhold details while applications are pending. The design depends on how much the coordinators publish.
Has this been done?
Partly done already: related work covers some of this question (first-pass screen of 16 October 2026; not yet checked in depth).
The Commission reports aggregate numbers, and a post seen only in search results appears to describe one rejected request, but no systematic record of outcomes by topic, including AI features, was found.
How strong this evidence is
- Who searched and checked: .
- What was read: 1 of the 2 nearest works below was judged from an abstract, summary or search listing only, and 1 has details that could not be confirmed; it is marked. Not every entry says how much of the work was read.
- Where the search could not reach: Screened by web searches on the date shown; national coordinators' sites and EUR-Lex were not searched, and the DSA Observatory site was blocked. Absence of a hit is not proof that the work does not exist.
- Before building a project on it, run your own search in a scholarly database such as Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar or SSRN.
Nearest work found
- European Commission, roundtable on data access for vetted researchers (LD08-SL-C25)
Full text read for this debate. Aggregate number of applications and topics; no outcomes by application. - DSA Observatory blog post on a rejected Article 40 data access request (12 March 2026) Judged from an abstract, summary or search listing onlySome details not confirmed
Seen in search results only; not read, because the site was blocked from here. One researcher's account of a refused request.
Search queries used
Article 40 DSA vetted researcher data access applications granted rejected 2026DSA delegated act data access researchers first access granted Digital Services Coordinator reportvetted researcher access AI features recommender systems generative AI DSA Article 40 application
Provenance
RO-LD08-04 v1. Drafted by Claude (SocioLens Project Lead), AI-drafted from the LD-08 debate on 2026-10-16. Not yet reviewed. Not yet reviewed by a domain expert. This is a research hypothesis, not a finding.