1. Introduction

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) refers to foundational digital systems that enable large-scale participation in economic, governmental, and social activities. Examples include digital identity, interoperable payment systems, public digital registries, data-exchange frameworks, digital credentials, open APIs, and other infrastructure that allows public and private actors to interact.

The concept of DPI neutrality means that infrastructure which performs an essential or quasi-public infrastructural function should operate according to principles of non-discrimination, interoperability, transparency, access, portability, and technological neutrality, rather than being designed to advantage a particular undertaking, ecosystem, technology, or commercial model.

The competition-law significance becomes particularly important where DPI becomes a bottleneck or gateway. If one operator controls identity authentication, payment rails, data access, interoperability protocols, APIs, or a critical digital registry, exclusion from that infrastructure may effectively prevent competitors from reaching users.

DPI neutrality therefore sits at the intersection of:

• competition law;
• digital-platform regulation;
• public procurement;
• interoperability;
• essential-facility principles;
• data portability;
• non-discrimination;
• public utility regulation; and
• administrative/public law.

2. Meaning of DPI Neutrality

DPI neutrality can be understood as the principle that shared digital infrastructure should not arbitrarily discriminate between similarly situated participants or use infrastructural control to distort downstream competition.

It has several dimensions.

A. Access neutrality

Eligible businesses should receive access to essential infrastructure on objectively justified and non-discriminatory terms.

For example, a public payment infrastructure should not allow one participating bank or technology provider to receive materially better access merely because it belongs to the infrastructure operator's preferred ecosystem.

B. Interoperability neutrality

Infrastructure should permit compatible systems to interact where interoperability is necessary for effective competition.

This can involve:

• APIs;
• authentication protocols;
• payment interfaces;
• identity verification;
• data-exchange standards;
• technical interfaces.

C. Technological neutrality

DPI should ordinarily avoid unnecessarily privileging one technical architecture.

The objective is not that every technology must always be treated identically. Rather, technical requirements should be based upon legitimate infrastructure objectives rather than protection of an incumbent technology.

D. Competitive neutrality

A public infrastructure operator should not exploit infrastructural control to favor its own downstream commercial services.

This is especially important where an entity simultaneously:

1. controls the infrastructure; and
2. competes with infrastructure users.

3. Why DPI Neutrality Matters Under Competition Law

DPI can generate substantial network effects.

The basic structure is:

More users → greater infrastructure value → more complementary businesses → more users

Once a digital infrastructure reaches sufficient scale, switching away from it may become difficult.

This can produce:

• network effects;
• economies of scale;
• data advantages;
• switching costs;
• interoperability dependency;
• ecosystem lock-in;
• entry barriers.

Consequently, apparently neutral technical decisions can have competition-law consequences.

For example:

If access to an identity-verification system is indispensable for competing digital lenders, discriminatory access conditions can potentially exclude competing lenders even if the infrastructure operator does not itself sell loans.

4. Core DPI Neutrality Principles

Principle 1 — Non-discriminatory access

Infrastructure access should be offered on objectively comparable terms.

Potentially problematic conduct includes:

• preferential API access;
• discriminatory authentication;
• differential technical standards;
• selective suspension;
• discriminatory pricing;
• preferential data access.

This resembles the competition-law concern underlying refusal-to-deal and essential-facility cases.

Principle 2 — Open and fair interoperability

Interoperability can prevent infrastructure from becoming an isolated ecosystem.

A neutral DPI architecture should, where appropriate:

• publish technical specifications;
• support standardized interfaces;
• allow authorized third parties to connect;
• avoid unnecessary proprietary restrictions.

Interoperability is particularly important in markets with strong network effects.

Principle 3 — No self-preferencing

A DPI operator should not use infrastructural control to advantage its own downstream services.

For example, suppose an entity operates:

• a digital identity layer;
• a payment infrastructure; and
• a competing financial-services platform.

It could potentially distort competition by:

• giving its own service faster authentication;
• granting itself superior API access;
• prioritizing its own transactions;
• withholding infrastructure functionality from rivals.

The neutrality principle therefore creates a structural separation between infrastructure governance and downstream commercial advantage.

5. Principle 4 — Transparent access criteria

Eligibility criteria should be:

• published;
• objective;
• predictable;
• proportionate;
• reviewable.

Opaque access decisions can themselves create competitive uncertainty.

A competitor should be able to determine:

What must I satisfy to obtain infrastructure access?

rather than:

Will the infrastructure operator decide whether it likes my business model?

6. Principle 5 — Proportionality of technical requirements

Infrastructure operators may legitimately impose:

• cybersecurity requirements;
• authentication standards;
• financial safeguards;
• data-protection conditions;
• technical certification.

But these requirements should not unnecessarily exclude competitors.

A useful test is:

Legitimate objective → necessary requirement → proportionate implementation

If a security requirement can be satisfied through several technologically neutral methods, selecting the method that happens to favor the incumbent ecosystem may raise competition concerns.

7. Principle 6 — Data neutrality

DPI frequently generates valuable data.

Neutrality therefore requires consideration of:

• equal access to relevant infrastructure-generated data;
• portability;
• data interoperability;
• restrictions on exclusive exploitation;
• privacy safeguards.

However, neutrality does not mean unrestricted data disclosure.

Data access must coexist with:

• privacy;
• cybersecurity;
• confidentiality;
• intellectual-property protection;
• legitimate public interests.

8. Principle 7 — Portability and switching

DPI should avoid creating unnecessary technological dependence.

Users and businesses should, where appropriate, be able to:

• transfer relevant data;
• change service providers;
• interoperate with alternative systems;
• migrate credentials or services.

Portability reduces the ability of infrastructure operators to convert network effects into permanent lock-in.

9. Principle 8 — Neutral governance

The governance body responsible for DPI should have safeguards against commercial capture.

Governance questions include:

• Who establishes technical standards?
• Who controls access?
• Who can amend APIs?
• Who determines certification?
• Who resolves disputes?
• Who can suspend participants?
• Are competitors represented in standard-setting?

A formally open infrastructure can nevertheless become non-neutral if its governance process is controlled by dominant commercial participants.

10. Principle 9 — Procedural fairness

Participants should have safeguards against arbitrary:

• exclusion;
• suspension;
• degradation of access;
• technical restrictions;
• account termination.

This is particularly important where infrastructure is indispensable.

Procedural safeguards may include:

1. notice;
2. reasons;
3. opportunity to respond;
4. independent review;
5. emergency suspension procedures;
6. restoration mechanisms.

11. Principle 10 — Neutrality over the infrastructure lifecycle

Neutrality cannot be assessed only when infrastructure is initially created.

It must continue through:

Design → deployment → access → interoperability → upgrades → monitoring → enforcement → modification

A system initially designed as open can gradually become exclusionary through:

• proprietary upgrades;
• API restrictions;
• discriminatory certification;
• technical degradation;
• exclusive partnerships.

12. Competition-Law Framework

DPI neutrality may engage several competition-law doctrines.

Article 101 / Section 1-type concerns

Agreements among infrastructure participants may restrict competition through:

• exclusionary standards;
• coordinated interoperability restrictions;
• collective refusal to provide access;
• discriminatory technical rules.

Article 102 / Abuse-of-dominance principles

A dominant DPI operator may potentially engage in:

• refusal to supply;
• discriminatory access;
• self-preferencing;
• tying;
• leveraging;
• exclusionary interoperability restrictions.

Merger control

Acquisitions involving DPI can raise concerns where an infrastructure operator acquires:

• complementary data assets;
• downstream competitors;
• interoperability providers;
• authentication services;
• payment technologies.

13. Important Case Laws

1. United Brands v Commission (1978)

The European Court of Justice recognized that a dominant undertaking can infringe competition law through discriminatory or abusive commercial conditions.

Relevance to DPI

A DPI operator with substantial market power should not be able to impose discriminatory conditions on infrastructure participants without objective justification.

The case supports the broader proposition that dominance carries special responsibilities concerning trading conditions.

14. 2. Commercial Solvents v Commission (1974)

The Court addressed the refusal by a dominant undertaking to supply an input to downstream competitors.

DPI relevance

This is highly relevant to digital infrastructure.

If an infrastructure operator controls an indispensable upstream input and simultaneously competes downstream, withdrawing access can potentially exclude downstream competitors.

The conceptual chain is:

Infrastructure control → indispensable input → downstream competition → exclusion risk

15. 3. Bronner v Mediaprint (1998)

The Court established the stringent conditions associated with requiring a dominant undertaking to provide access to infrastructure under the essential-facilities doctrine.

The Court emphasized factors such as:

• indispensability;
• elimination of effective competition;
• absence of realistic alternatives.

DPI relevance

The case provides an important limitation on DPI neutrality.

Not every digital infrastructure must be opened to every competitor.

Mandatory access becomes considerably stronger where the infrastructure is genuinely indispensable and refusal would eliminate effective competition.

16. 4. IMS Health v NDC Health (2004)

The Court considered compulsory access to a protected information structure and identified demanding conditions for requiring licensing/access.

DPI relevance

Digital infrastructure frequently combines:

• software;
• databases;
• technical specifications;
• intellectual property;
• data structures.

IMS Health demonstrates that competition law must balance infrastructural access against legitimate intellectual-property interests.

Therefore:

DPI neutrality ≠ automatic compulsory licensing.

17. 5. Microsoft v Commission (2007)

The General Court upheld important aspects of the Commission's approach to Microsoft's refusal to provide interoperability information.

The case is particularly important because interoperability was central to preventing Microsoft's dominant position in one market from being leveraged into adjacent markets.

DPI relevance

This is perhaps one of the strongest conceptual precedents for digital infrastructure neutrality.

It demonstrates that:

Control over technical interoperability can become a competition problem when it prevents rivals from competing effectively.

For DPI, the analogous problem may involve withholding:

• APIs;
• protocols;
• authentication interfaces;
• technical specifications;
• interoperability information.

18. 6. Slovak Telekom v Commission (2021)

The Court considered access obligations concerning telecommunications infrastructure and the conditions under which competition law can address exclusionary conduct involving access to infrastructure.

DPI relevance

Modern DPI increasingly resembles telecommunications infrastructure in one important respect:

competition downstream may depend upon access to an upstream network layer.

The case therefore helps explain why infrastructure access conditions can become central to abuse-of-dominance analysis.

19. 7. Google Shopping (Google and Alphabet v Commission, 2024)

The EU courts considered Google's treatment of its comparison-shopping service within its broader search ecosystem.

The case is highly significant for self-preferencing and leveraging.

DPI relevance

A digital infrastructure operator may have incentives to favor its own downstream services.

For example:

DPI layer → ranking/access/interface control → own downstream service → competitive advantage

The Google Shopping litigation illustrates why infrastructural or platform control can become problematic when the operator systematically advantages its own downstream offering.

20. 8. Google Android (Commission v Google, 2022)

The Android litigation concerned Google's use of contractual arrangements surrounding the Android ecosystem and the leveraging of market power across related markets.

DPI relevance

It illustrates how control over an important digital ecosystem can be used to influence competition in adjacent markets.

DPI neutrality similarly seeks to prevent:

infrastructure power → ecosystem leverage → downstream exclusion

21. Synthesis of the Case Law

The cases collectively establish several important principles.

22. DPI Neutrality and Essential Facilities

The essential-facilities doctrine should be applied carefully to DPI.

A digital infrastructure is more likely to raise essential-facility concerns when:

1. it is controlled by a dominant undertaking;
2. access is indispensable;
3. duplication is economically or technically impractical;
4. refusal eliminates effective competition;
5. there is no objective justification for refusal.

However, public importance alone does not automatically make infrastructure an essential facility.

This distinction is crucial.

Public infrastructure ≠ automatically essential facility

A publicly important system may still have:

• substitutes;
• competing networks;
• alternative technologies;
• alternative authentication mechanisms.

Competition law should therefore examine actual market conditions rather than simply labeling every DPI system an essential facility.

23. DPI Neutrality and Network Effects

Network effects create a particular danger.

Suppose infrastructure has 10 million participants.

A competitor may technically be able to create another system, but consumers may refuse to migrate because everyone else remains on the incumbent system.

Thus:

Technical replicability ≠ effective substitutability

This is one of the major reasons why DPI neutrality can become important even where alternative technology theoretically exists.

24. DPI Neutrality and Public Procurement

Government procurement can also affect neutrality.

Suppose a government builds a digital public platform and awards operation to a private company.

If procurement terms subsequently allow that company to:

• control technical standards;
• exclude competing providers;
• retain exclusive data rights;
• prevent interoperability;

the resulting infrastructure may become commercially closed despite having originated as public infrastructure.

Procurement design should therefore incorporate:

• open standards;
• interoperability requirements;
• portability;
• auditability;
• non-discrimination;
• transition rights.

25. DPI Neutrality and Standard-Setting

Technical standards can themselves become competitive bottlenecks.

A standard-setting body could theoretically:

• exclude rival technologies;
• impose discriminatory certification;
• make interoperability unnecessarily expensive;
• give incumbent firms voting advantages.

Neutrality therefore requires procedural neutrality in standard-setting, not merely neutral technical specifications.

26. DPI Neutrality and AI

AI creates a new dimension.

Future DPI may include:

• public AI identity verification;
• government AI models;
• public-sector foundation models;
• AI compliance systems;
• algorithmic eligibility systems;
• public compute infrastructure.

Suppose one AI infrastructure provider controls a public AI interface and competing AI providers require access to it.

Neutrality questions could include:

• Are APIs equally available?
• Are competing models treated equally?
• Is compute allocated neutrally?
• Are safety requirements applied consistently?
• Does the infrastructure favor one model?
• Can users switch AI providers?

Thus DPI neutrality may evolve into AI infrastructure neutrality.

27. DPI Neutrality and Data Governance

Data is increasingly an infrastructural resource.

A DPI system may generate enormous datasets concerning:

• transactions;
• identity;
• mobility;
• health;
• government services;
• business activity.

The operator may therefore possess informational advantages over downstream competitors.

A neutral system should prevent the infrastructure operator from converting privileged access to infrastructure-generated data into an unfair competitive advantage.

This creates a three-layer neutrality problem:

Infrastructure neutrality + data neutrality + algorithmic neutrality

28. Remedies for DPI Neutrality Violations

Competition authorities and regulators may employ several remedies.

Structural remedies

In extreme cases:

• separation of infrastructure and downstream operations;
• divestiture;
• independent governance.

Behavioral remedies

More commonly:

• non-discriminatory access;
• interoperability obligations;
• API access;
• transparent criteria;
• prohibition of self-preferencing;
• data portability.

Procedural remedies

Such as:

• independent dispute resolution;
• access appeals;
• transparency reports;
• audit mechanisms.

Technical remedies

Including:

• open APIs;
• standardized protocols;
• interoperability testing;
• portability mechanisms;
• technical monitoring.

29. A DPI Neutrality Test

A useful analytical framework is:

Step 1 — Identify the infrastructure

What digital layer is controlled?

Step 2 — Identify the bottleneck

Can competitors realistically operate without it?

Step 3 — Identify the controller

Is the infrastructure operated by:

• government;
• public-private partnership;
• private undertaking;
• consortium?

Step 4 — Identify downstream competition

Does the infrastructure operator compete with infrastructure users?

Step 5 — Examine access conditions

Are access conditions:

• equal?
• transparent?
• objective?
• proportionate?

Step 6 — Examine interoperability

Can alternative providers connect?

Step 7 — Examine data advantages

Does the operator receive privileged data unavailable to competitors?

Step 8 — Examine self-preferencing

Does the operator favor its own services?

Step 9 — Apply objective justification

Are discriminatory measures genuinely necessary for:

• security;
• privacy;
• resilience;
• fraud prevention;
• technical integrity?

Step 10 — Select remedy

Choose between:

• access;
• interoperability;
• non-discrimination;
• portability;
• governance reform;
• structural separation.

30. Challenges to DPI Neutrality

Neutrality is not absolute.

Cybersecurity

Open interfaces may create security vulnerabilities.

Privacy

Broad data access may conflict with privacy law.

Systemic risk

Authorities may legitimately restrict access to protect critical infrastructure.

Intellectual property

Technical infrastructure may contain legitimate proprietary technology.

Public-interest objectives

Governments may prioritize:

• financial inclusion;
• national security;
• public safety;
• social welfare.

Therefore, DPI neutrality must be balanced against legitimate regulatory objectives.

31. Central Legal Principle

The most important conceptual distinction is:

Neutrality does not require identical treatment; it requires objectively justified, proportionate and non-discriminatory treatment.

A security-sensitive infrastructure may legitimately impose stricter requirements on a high-risk participant.

The competition-law problem arises where apparently neutral technical rules are actually used to:

• exclude rivals;
• protect incumbents;
• foreclose innovation;
• extract rents;
• reinforce ecosystem dominance.

32. Conclusion

Digital Public Infrastructure Neutrality is emerging as an important competition-law principle for digital economies.

Its underlying objective is to ensure that infrastructure serving as a foundational digital layer does not become a mechanism for private or institutional foreclosure of downstream competition.

The principal safeguards are:

1. non-discriminatory access;
2. interoperability;
3. technological neutrality;
4. transparent governance;
5. proportionate technical standards;
6. data neutrality;
7. portability;
8. procedural fairness;
9. restrictions on self-preferencing; and
10. independent oversight.

The case law from Commercial Solvents, Bronner, IMS Health, Microsoft, Slovak Telekom, Google Shopping, Google Android, and United Brands demonstrates the legal foundations for analysing these concerns.

Ultimately, the central competition question is:

When digital infrastructure becomes indispensable to participation in a market, who controls access to that infrastructure, on what terms, and can that control be used to distort competition?