The Internet of Things Council defines the involvement of Europe in the smart technology of tomorrow, its effect on everyday life as well as the development of a new world order.
Internet of Things (IoT) holds the potential to unite physical and virtual world thereby creating a smart environment for all. In the past 6 years, the the European Commission has been easy with the industries, third countries, EU Member States as well as the different organization to unleash the very potential of the IoT technology.
The Internet of Things showcases the further steps on way to the digitisation of the economy and society where the people and objects are inter twined by way of communication networks. In accordance to the study conducted by the European Commission, the market value of the IoT in the EU is supposed to be over one trillion euros by the end of 2020.
Europe's IoT Policy
Did you know: Europe was the first one to begin with the research of IOT.
The European Commission has undertaken a set of supporting policy actions in the past two years. Such changes have been directed to accelerate the take up of IoT and unleash its potential in the continent to prove beneficial for both businesses and the European citizens. In the March of the year 2015, European Commission came up with the idea of Alliance for Internet of Things Innovation (AIOTI) in order to cater to the industry driven and innovative European Internet of Things ecosystem. This puts forth the intention of the EU commission to work intimately with all the IoT stakeholders and the actors towards the development of a competitive European IoT market along with the designing of the different new business models. At present, AIOTI is the leading European IoT Association.
Further in May, same year, the Commission adopted the Digital Single Market (DSM) Strategy. This particular strategy involves elements that lead Europe a step further in progressing developments related to Internet of Things. The strategy puts forth the very need to foster interoperability and avoid fragmentation to allow IoT to reach its absolute potential.
The EU’s IoT vision is based on three key pillars:
One major hindrance in the achievement of a single market for the Internet of Things has to do with the hassles related to the capacity to cater to the vast diversity along with the humongous variety of connected devices as well as the need to safely identify them and discover them so as to allow them to be plugged in the IoT systems. Given this context, it becomes extremely crucial to promote an interoperable IoT numbering space for a universal object identification which overshadows the geographical limits along with a free system for object authentication and identification.
More so, the recently proposed European data economy also facilitates the development of the European single market for IoT. As part of this initiative, there are legal solutions and policies relating to the free flow of data across the national border in the Europe as well as the liability issues in difficult environments such as the one with IoT. This liability is particularly necessary to accentuate the legal certainty around the products and services of IoT. Besides the policy initiatives the EU Govt. and IoT Vision also involve setting up of concrete IoT innovation objectives and research in the ongoing Horizon 2020 programme.
To know more about IOT vision of EU, read here.
