Digital Regulation: Driving Growth and Unlocking Innovation - Which? response

Which? welcomes the Digital Regulation - Driving Growth and Unlocking Innovation policy paper. We welcome the intention to "ensure a coherent, innovation-friendly and streamlined regulatory landscape", the intention to "provide businesses with certainty" and to "give people the confidence they need to engage with digital technologies safely". We welcome the move to create the Digital Markets Unit, the pro-competition regime and the voluntary creation of the Digital Regulation Co-operation Forum.

Which? believes that consumers’ digital lives should be enriched with choice across a wide range of products, services and markets. Consumers should be able to purchase and engage with exciting innovations that are designed, built and maintained with privacy by design, security by design and fairness by design at the very core and that the rights consumers have should include data rights and data protection.

We welcome the Government's push to ensure that the complex, multifaceted digital landscape of today is regulated and that consideration is being given to what the future challenges in the digital and innovation space will be. But Which? is concerned by reference to deregulation in the policy paper and wider suggestion that regulation inhibits growth and innovation. If done well, regulation can ensure that there are clear rules of the road for businesses of all sizes and clear rights and protections for consumers - whose data and consent are after all integral to digital innovation. While it is vital that the current harms consumers are exposed to online are addressed swiftly, the Government should not be blind to the harms coming down the road. The Government should ensure that rather than deregulating protections around data, the regulations and legislation are clear on preventing new harms from becoming entrenched, for example in relation to automated decisions made by the use of machine learning algorithms and AI.

If the future of digital innovation and growth is to thrive and flourish it is absolutely vital that these aspirations are married with good, clear, agile and ethical regulation and rights which protect consumers as well as enabling business.