As part of its inquiry on the ‘Digital Regulation’, the Communications and Digital Committee launched a consultation inviting views and perspectives on its suggested plan for the coordination and supervision of the digital regulation in the UK. Along with Dr Michael Veale, we provided our evidence which have now been published.
Our 3 key points:
- Without careful consideration of the competences and powers of the Digital Authority, we risk increasing transaction costs and enforcement complexities by creating another administrative clog to an already overloaded machine.
- We need to institutionalise the discussion on what kind of Internet/Digital world we want, and to question the power and legitimacy of those entities who control and shape our perception of what is possible. Inter-institutional coordination is not enough.
- Although such a discussion is hard, systematically avoiding it is a problem for democracy. Previous parliamentary debates on the regulation of other infrastructures (telcos, broadcasters etc) may be helpful.
TLDR: The DA needs norm-shaping powers and a political mandate.
For the full text of our response see the pdf below
