Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
THE DIGITAL
SINGLE MARKET
AND INTERNET
OF THINGS
OPEN RIGHTS GROUP
BRIEF
1 Goldmith and Wu (2006) Who Controls the Internet , Oxford University Press.
1
THE DIGITAL SINGLE MARKET AND INTERNET OF THINGS
2 Eurostat News Release EU population up to nearly 513 million on 1 January 2018 115/2018 - 10 July 2018
3 Source: Eurostat https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&plugin=1&language=en&pcode=tps00001
2
THE DIGITAL SINGLE MARKET AND INTERNET OF THINGS
former monopoly markets. The British order that the law as it stands will continue to
government was a key driver of this policy. apply on the day after leaving. Some Directives
are enshrined as UK legislation, such as the
• protects the rights of citizens ( privacy, free Communications Act 2003.
speech, due process)4 consumers
However, other EU Directives have been
•
5
and businesses (right to conduct a transposed as Secondary Legislation, also
business)6, as established by the Charter of known as UK Regulations, and yet others, EU
Fundamental Rights Regulations, may not have been transposed
• EC J arbitrates in commercial disputes and at all, as they apply immediately from the date
answers questions of legal interpretation they are officially in force in the EU. These
from national courts. raise specific concerns, that when this policy
area is repatriated after Brexit, the British
government may make changes and diverge
from EU law, and it is understood to be seeking
trade agreements with countries, such as the
What may change US, that may mandate different standards. In
after Brexit? the digital context, where connectivity and
compatibility are fundamental to being able to
scale up services, this is a concern, notably as
With Brexit comes change. The UK government
many IoT services are still nascent and the EU
has confirmed that it will be leaving the
will be influential in shaping them.
Digital Single Market7. In doing so, it breaks
away from the common set of rules. For
developers based in Britain, or offering services
into Britain, the legal landscape will shift. In
particular, cross-border service provision into Issues
and out of the UK will be affected. Issues will
include compatibility of services, legality of British-based IoT services risk losing the
transmitting and processing personal data, and ability to offer services, barrier-free, across 28
regulatory jurisdiction. IoT developers will have countries. Brexit will affect:
to figure out how to navigate this new legal
landscape and its consequences. Broadband networks and cloud computing
services used to deliver IoT services
The change will affect all services delivered
across the UK border into the European Union Cloud-based platforms or services used as a
and vice versa. Service providers will need to development environment
consider location of users, location of data
Electronic communications services used by
processing, hosting, and service provision, and
developers in the context of their work, such as
that of any third party sub-contractors, which
mobile roaming for data and broadband
could all be in different jurisdictions.
Considerations for IoT developers will include
Britain has agreed to transfer EU law into UK, in
4 European Charter of Fundamental Rights Articles 7,8,11, and 47. Corresponding rights in the European Convention on Human Rights, which the UK will
continue to uphold, are Articles 8 and 10, and 6.
5 Ibid 3 Article 38
6 Ibid 3 Article 16
7 PM Speech on our future economic partnership with the European Union 2 March 2018 https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-our-
future-economic-partnership-with-the-european-union
3
THE DIGITAL SINGLE MARKET AND INTERNET OF THINGS
www.openrightsgroup.org
8 White Paper July 2018 The Future Relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union