There are 2 new laws proposed by the European Commission revolving digital services in the European Union. These laws are the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) (The Digital Services Act package, 2022). But why did the European Commission planned new laws? In this part, the digital services act will be discussed. The evolving environment and fundamental rights of the users are important when considering the effect of platforms.
Digitization and platforms are becoming more important in the daily lives of individuals. Individuals use platforms for shopping, communication and many other purposes. For users, higher transparency, pricing and better content are some of the benefits of digitization of various services. However, these emerging trends are not all coming up roses. Individuals can also be exposed to some issues that come with digitization. Examples are illegal trade, limitations on self-expression or discrimination. Because these issues are in contradiction with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (the same principle for which the GDPR is also developed), a new law is proposed to protect individuals, the Digital Services Act. By this law, platform owners obtain more responsibility for the content on the platform. The DSA requires organisations to have the right procedures at hand in order to deal with illegal content, such as fake news. An important note is that various “categories” of organisations revolving digital services or platforms have additional obligations. In order form the least obligations to most obligations, the categories of platforms are as follows: provider of intermediary services, hosting, online platforms and “very large online platforms” (Digital Services Act, 2021; PricewaterhouseCoopers, n.d.). An example of additional obligations is to allow conducting of external audits by authorities and crisis response. Moreover, the firms could be forced to share or be transparent about the algorithms used in advertising or recommendations systems. This creates more transparency for the users regarding online advertising.
To conclude, the Digital Service Act is developed for the increased risk of individuals online and on online platforms. The new law requires firms, dependent on their category, to implement processes to deal with illegal content and be transparent about algorithms and decision making.
In the opinion of the author, the new law will have an impact, but in small extent. The predicted trend of these new laws is similar to the GDPR. According to the GDPR, organisations may not process personal data unless an individual checks a box, which is often done without hesitation. The transparency of algorithms could be impactful, however most individuals are probably not focused on these decision-making processes. However, the GDPR did increase the recognized interest of privacy of European citizens. The DSA has the same opportunity regarding the risks of platforms and digitization and the increased power some platforms obtain in our daily lives.
References
The Digital Services Act package. (2022, July 5). Shaping Europe’s Digital Future. Retrieved 27 September 2022, from https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/digital-services-act-package
Ministerie van Economische Zaken en Klimaat. (2021, November 25). EU-ministers akkoord met regelgeving voor digitale diensten en markten. Nieuwsbericht | Rijksoverheid.nl. Retrieved 27 September 2022, from https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/actueel/nieuws/2021/11/24/eu-ministers-akkoord-met-regelgeving-digitale-diensten-en–markten
PricewaterhouseCoopers. (n.d.). Grondige herziening van regels voor onlineplatforms. PwC. Retrieved 28 September 2022, from https://www.pwc.nl/nl/actueel-en-publicaties/themas/digitalisering/grondige-herziening-van-regels-voor-onlineplatforms.html
Digital Services Act, (2021). https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=COM%3A2020%3A825%3AFIN
