Title: STANDARDS AND INTEROPERABILITY

Standards and interoperability seem to be necessary for the creation of an AmI environment. They however do create vulnerability in terms of security and privacy.  

From a legal point of view, an important distinction exists between the notions of ‘technical regulations’ and ‘technical standards’. Technical regulations are created by authorised public authorities and are in principle binding. Most problems of interoperability are however not solved via technical regulations, but via technical standards.  

Technical standards are prepared by all interested parties (companies, consumers, workers, public authorities) on the basis of a number of principles (e.g. consensus, openness and transparency). Although they can be very important to solve problems of interoperability, they are in principle not binding. To make these standards legally binding, they have to be included in legal acts.

Important legislation on EU level is Directive 98/34 on technical standards and technical regulations in information society services. This directive imposes a detailed information procedure for technical standards and regulations: Member States are obliged to inform the Commission and other Member States of new initiatives in this field and to publish the draft standards in such a way that comments may also be obtained from parties established in other Member States (article 2-3). The Commission and other Member States will be allowed to propose amendments to a contemplated measure, in order to remove or reduce any barriers, which it might create, to the free movement of goods (article 6). The Member State concerned must take into account the amendments when formulating the definitive text of the measure envisaged. This procedure allows the Commission, the Member States and the economical operators to be aware of technical standards and regulations that the Member States want to install. The information and cooperation procedure foreseen in this directive can help the Commission in harmonising the standards and can eventually form the basis for the creation of European standards.