EU Legislative Approaches to the Regulation of Digitalisation

This introductory article outlines three fundamental regulatory developments in the EU’s legislation addressing digitalization and automation of decision-making: One is that across many acts, we see a move towards more complex multi-level composite procedures, involving not only public structures with agencies, EU bodies, national agencies but also co-regulation through standardization in combination with – in several areas – audited self-regulation. A second feature of much of the current legislation in digital matters is that obligations imposed therein require increased attention to information management – from sourcing to use, dissemination, and sharing. This is a requirement for both public and private actors imposing ever more ‘granular’ knowledge and reporting of information flows in economic operators. A third is the growing role of interoperability, which is being firmly established as a tool to create data exchange possibilities. The diverse regulatory tools and methods are creating complex networks of legal relations and obligations that appear difficult to submit to oversight and compliance without strong protection of individual rights and procedural structures ensuring their enforcement.