Legal Aspects of IDS: Data Sovereignty— What Does It Imply?

Abstract

The claim of data sovereignty is inherently linked to putting the legal instruments and tools in the hands of each participant in the ecosystem, allowing freedom of contract as well as ensuring that exercising data exchange and consorted data usage in the data economy is in compliance with general and specific regulations, ranging from anti-trust to GDPR and cyber-security regulations as well as sector specific regulations. The IDS provides a framework and a technology to allow the parties to limit their transaction costs and to ensure effective enforcement through the concept of usage control. In a future world, this will include increased automation of contract execution (conclusion, performance, and enforcement), whereas the steps to reach that goal are plentiful and, as of now, still require to “set the scene” with the means of the traditional contractual agreements. This article provides an overview and orientation on the key legal areas and aspects to consider for stakeholders, participants, and the business more generally and in the application of the IDS architecture.