Public scrutiny of platforms has been limited by a lack of transparency. In response, EU law increasingly requires platforms to provide data to researchers. The Digital Services Act and the proposed Regulation on the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising in particular require platforms to provide access to data through ad libraries and in response to data access requests. However, these obligations leave platforms considerable discretion to determine how access to data is provided. As the history of platforms’ self-regulated data access projects shows, the technical choices involved in designing data access significantly affect how researchers can use the provided data to scrutinise platforms. Ignoring the way data access is designed therefore creates a danger that platforms’ ability to limit research into their services simply shifts from controlling what data is available to researchers, to how data access is provided. This article explores how the Digital Services Act and proposed Political Advertising Regulation should be used to control the operationalisation of data access obligations that enable researchers to scrutinise platforms. It argues the operationalisation of data access regimes should not only be seen as a legal problem, but also as a software design problem. To that end it explores how software development principles may inform the operationalisation of data access obligations. The article closes by exploring the legal mechanisms available in the Digital Services Act and proposed Political Advertising Regulation to exercise control over the design of data access regimes, and makes five recommendations for ways in which these mechanisms should be used to enable research into platforms.

中文翻译：

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如何为研究人员设计数据访问：法律和软件开发的角度

由于缺乏透明度，公众对平台的审查受到限制。作为回应，欧盟法律越来越要求平台向研究人员提供数据。《数字服务法》和拟议的《政治广告透明度和针对性条例》特别要求平台通过广告库提供数据访问并响应数据访问请求。然而，这些义务让平台有相当大的自由裁量权来决定如何提供数据访问。正如平台自我监管数据访问项目的历史所示，设计数据访问所涉及的技术选择会极大地影响研究人员如何使用所提供的数据来审查平台。因此，忽视数据访问的设计方式会产生一种危险，即平台限制对其服务的研究的能力只是从控制研究人员可用的数据转向如何提供数据访问。本文探讨了如何使用《数字服务法》和拟议的《政治广告条例》来控制数据访问义务的运作，使研究人员能够审查平台。它认为数据访问制度的运作不仅应该被视为一个法律问题，而且还应该被视为一个软件设计问题。为此，它探讨了软件开发原则如何为数据访问义务的实施提供信息。本文最后探讨了《数字服务法》中可用的法律机制，并提出了《政治广告条例》，以对数据访问制度的设计进行控制，并就如何使用这些机制来支持平台研究提出了五项建议。