Big Data analyses make it possible to harvest valuable information from troves of data. EU competition law opens the door to a compulsory license in exceptional cases when access to resources controlled by a third party is indispensable. Opening the doors with force requires careful considerations and balancing of the interests not just of the ‘door keeper’ and the party seeking entry but also of the overall interests in stimulating innovation. Focusing on data which are protected either under the EU Database Directive or Trade secret Directive, the contribution first appraises their scope of protection in Big Data cases. It then analyses and discusses to what extent these protected interests should be accounted for in competition law analysis. It concludes that the mere fact of this protection should not cut off the competition law intervention. Rather, the “quality” of the protected interests might be internalised for more calibrated competition enforcement.