On 23 February, Eur-Lex published the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on harmonised rules on fair access to and use of data (Data Act). Reading the text, reminds me of a brainstorming in 2017, when a group of leading European technology companies had an exchange with CEN and CENELEC members and officers. Indeed, two of the three ESOs anticipated (virtually five years ago) the need to prepare European standards that could bring trust specifying conditions for #Data to be transferred to third parties in a fair, conscient and consented way. Or facilitating that citizens could be rewarded and keep control of third parties' access to their data (obtained in the context of #IoT and smart devices). Or to regulate the establishment of #DataTraders or #DataPools.
Some years later, the European Commission published this proposal for the #EUDataAct, which enables making data generated by the use of a product or related service available to the user of that product or service, on the making data available by data holders to data recipients. Virtually as anticipated by CEN and CENELEC and these leading European companies.
European (harmonised) standards may be drafted by the ESOs following standardisation requests from the European Commission in order to support the application of the requirement that 'products shall be designed and manufactured, and related services shall be provided, in such a manner that data generated by their use are, by default, easily, securely and, where relevant and appropriate, directly accessible to the user'.
In addition, European standards and technical specifications in the meaning of Article II of Regulation (EU) 1025/2012 on #EuropeanStandardisation may also support the issuing of "standard" contracts or transparency on how data will be used.
European Standards build trust, and for me, it is clear that the European citizens can only benefit from this mechanism that is envisaged in this proposed Regulation. Let us hope this remains untouched after the 'trialogue' and that the three ESOs have 'a say' (and 'a do') in this story, and not only ETSI. It is essential that the standardisers of the #things in the #IoT are duly considered when drafting standards for smart products.
By the way, this proposal for a Regulation is of particular interest for #SMEs and #Citizens.
