On February 23rd, 2022, the European Commission (DG CONNECT) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina connected for an exchange about their vision and actions for the Internet of Things (IoT), gathering selected experts of the domain. The event took place with the support of ETSI and the InDiCo project team.
The objective of the workshop was to share the European and Argentinian approaches related to IoT policy, regulation and standards.
The following areas were covered:
- Policy Initiatives and Vision for IoT
- Technology, Standards and Uses Cases for the IoT
- Cybersecurity standards for Consumer IoT
- Market access requirements & certification
The workshop was co-chaired by:
- Tonnie De Koster, Adviser for the International Aspects of Digital Transformation (European Commission DG CONNECT)
and - Nicolás Vidal, Director de Seguridad Humana, Innovación y Asuntos Tecnológicos Internacionales, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Comercio Internacional y Culto de la República Argentina.
The programme featured the following speakers from Europe and Argentina, representing public authorities, regulatory bodies, standard-setting bodies as well as implementing organizations. A high-level overview of IoT policies, regulations and standardization approaches in Europe and Argentina as well as practical examples of use cases in the Smart City, Smart Energy and Precise Agriculture domains were presented.
- Emilio Davila-Gonzalez (European Commission DG CONNECT), Head of ICT Standardization Sector presented the policy, the vision and the standardization activities in Europe.
- Juan Gnius, Director de Planeamiento y Universalización - Subsecretaría de Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicaciones - Jefatura de Gabinete de Ministros presented the IoT Vision and Actions in Argentina.
- Enrico Scarrone, Chairman of ETSI – TC SmartM2M, presented the importance of the Technology and Standards for the IoT.
- Christophe Colinet, EuroCities member and Smart City Project Manager of Bordeaux Metropole, presented the use case of the Smart City of Bordeaux.
- Pedro Henrique Gomes, Senior Researcher at Ericsson, presented the use case of precise agriculture and the importance of cooperative projects between Europe and Latin American in the IoT, Research and Standardization domain.
- David Emanuel Rua, Senior Researcher at INESC TEC and Coordinator of the InterConnect H2020 project, presented the use cases of Smart Buildings and Smart Energy and the importance of Data Interoperability and its associated Standards.
- Sonia Compans, Technical Officer for ETSI TC Cyber, presented the European approach to secure the consumer IoT space and the EN 303 645 Cyber Security Standard.
- Xavier Piednoir, InDiCo project Manager at ETSI, presented the market access requirements and certification approach in Europe through the use of the Traditional and New Legislative Frameworks in Europe.
The fragmentation of the market and technical solutions was acknowledged and recognized as being a main concern by all the parties. There was also a shared understanding that minimum inter-working mechanisms can help to reduce this fragmentation even if it is inherent in IoT solutions. The oneM2M set of specifications was presented as a layer to create the necessary bridge between sectors and bring interoperability to otherwise fragmented environments.
Cybersecurity Standards for the Consumer IoT market and market access requirements were also discussed.
Tonnie De Koster, Emilio Davila-Gonzalez from the European Commission (DG CONNECT) and Juan Gnius, Director de Planeamiento y Universalización - Subsecretaría de Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicaciones agreed on the benefits and the importance of further cooperation exchanges between the European and Argentinian communities of experts working on the implementation of IoT policy, regulations and standards. The workshop was seen as a helpful step ahead of the upcoming dialogue on Digital between the European Union and Argentina.