Switching is a customer-driven operation consisting of several steps, including data extraction, which refers to the downloading of data from the ecosystem of the source provider of data processing services; transformation, where the data is structured in a way that does not match the schema of the target location; and the uploading of the data in a new destination location. In a specific situation outlined in this Regulation, unbundling of a particular service from the contract and moving it to a different provider should also be considered to be switching. The switching process is sometimes managed on behalf of the customer by a third-party entity. Accordingly, all rights and obligations of the customer established by this Regulation, including the obligation to cooperate in good faith, should be understood to apply to such a third-party entity in those circumstances. Providers of data processing services and customers have different levels of responsibilities, depending on the steps of the process referred to. For instance, the source provider of data processing services is responsible for extracting the data to a machine-readable format, but it is the customer and the destination provider of data processing services who are to upload the data to the new environment, unless a specific professional transition service has been obtained. A customer who intends to exercise rights related to switching, which are provided for in this Regulation, should inform the source provider of data processing services of the decision to either switch to a different provider of data processing services, switch to an on-premises ICT infrastructure or to delete that customer’s assets and erase its exportable data.
