Full Title: Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 1159/2013 of 12 July 2013 supplementing Regulation (EU) No 911/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the European Earth monitoring programme (GMES) by establishing registration and licensing conditions for GMES users and defining criteria for restricting access to GMES dedicated data and GMES service information
Adopted: 12 July 2013
Entry into force: 9 December 2013

The Regulation requires Copernicus data and information to be made available on a full, open and free of charge basis, subject to limitations concerning registration, dissemination formats, and access restrictions. The new Copernicus Regulation of 2014, replacing the one of 2010, ensures the continuation of this data policy. The key elements of free, full and open access in terms of the Copernicus data policy are that 1) there are no restrictions on the use (commercial and non-commercial) nor on users (European and non-European); 2) a free of charge version of any dataset is always available on the Copernicus dissemination platform; and 3) data and information are available worldwide without limitation in time. Users shall, however, inform the public of the source of the data and information and notify any modifications made thereto. Limitation of access might be based, on the one hand, on legal grounds such as international agreements, IPR and the protection of personal data and, on the other hand, on the protection of security interests subject to an assessment of the sensitivity of the data and information to be undertaken by the Commission. Finally, access limitations can be set in exceptional cases for technical reasons, namely if the capacities of the dissemination systems are not sufficient to serve all user requests. Where the Commission restricts access to certain users, those users shall register under a procedure allowing their unequivocal identification before receiving access.