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Building on the March 2021 ‘Ten Tech Priorities’ the Plan for Digital Regulation outlines at a high level how the Government will strive to achieve a balance between enabling innovation in digital tech while ensuring protections for society and fundamental rights.

What does the Plan say?

The Plan for Digital Regulation first defines digital regulation as ‘the range of regulatory tools that government, regulators, businesses, and other bodies use to manage the impact that digital technologies and activities can have on individuals, companies, the economy and society.’

For the Government, digital regulation includes norms, self-regulation, statutory codes of conduct, and rules in primary legislation. Examples included in the plan are the UK’s Data Protection Regime and Online Safety Bill.

The plan also contains key principles which the Government believes policymakers should follow when crafting digital regulation:

• Principle 1 - Actively promote innovation: removing unnecessary regulations and burdens while considering whether non-regulatory measures are more appropriate and, if not, ensuring that regulation is outcomes focused, backed by robust evidence and considering the effects on innovation.
• Principle 2 - Achieve forward looking and coherent outcomes: acknowledging the interconnectedness of regulatory regimes and ensuring new regulation minimises contradictions, undue burdens or overlaps with existing frameworks.
• Principle 3 - Exploit opportunities and address challenges in the international arena: building in international considerations from the start to consider existing global obligations and how digital technical standards can support domestic rulemaking.

Innovative Regulation

techUK is encouraged to see that the Plan clearly states how ‘digital technologies and activities demand a distinct regulatory approach’ given the ‘distinctive features which make digital businesses and applications unique and innovative’.

This focus sees the plan build on a growing discussion within Government and UK regulators around innovation enabling regulation.

Any regulatory system must seek to balance the prevention of harms to consumers and the public while also enabling businesses to innovate and create new products that ultimately will bring consumer and public benefit in the future. At the heart of this balance is a tension between the need for regulatory action against existing or past harms and any potential trade off against future consumer benefits that may be lost due to premature regulation.

Enabling innovation and striking the right balance between harm prevention while also supporting the development of products and services that deliver future consumer benefits means making sure regulatory interventions are proportionately targeted and risk-based while also enabling coordination across the economy so that innovation at the boundaries of sectors can be enabled. The principles set out in this plan make a good start, however how these are put into practice will be key.

Making the plan a reality

techUK supports the principles and approach taken which clearly shows ambitions to create a regulatory environment that enables innovation. However, one of the biggest challenges will be how to put these principles into action to achieve a joined-up approach domestically and internationally across regulators and government. The plan references early efforts to achieve this such as the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum and DCMS’s work with global partners through the G7 Digital Declaration.

There is much to be supportive of within this plan, including the ambitions to support emerging technologies and acknowledgement of how innovation should be at the heart of regulation and techUK will continue to work with the team at DCMS to dig into the detail and bring in insights from the sector so this Plan can be a success.

Next steps

DCMS is looking to continue the conversation on how they develop and shape their approach towards future regulation and are calling for input from a broad range of stakeholders on their Plan.

If you would like any further information on how techUK will be responding please get in touch with lulu.freemont@techUK.org and you can also share thoughts directly with the DCMS team before 28 September via digitalregulationplan@dcms.gov.uk.

Responding to the announcement of the Plan for Digital Regulation Julian David, CEO of techUK said:

"Creating a framework for digital regulation that promotes innovation is a global challenge. If the UK can get this right, we can drive discussions at the international level and build on our reputation as a leading digital economy.

"The Plan for Digital Regulation is a strong start and shows the Government’s commitment to creating a coordinated, proportionate and innovation-focused regulatory system. We look forward to working with Government in making this Plan a reality by building a partnership with the sector to dig into the detail and turn these strong core principles into a forward-looking framework that reinforces the UK’s position as a top tier destination for technology companies."