Legal and Policy

Purpose

To develop and sustain UK leadership in legal matters and policy in Open technology

Vision

Open technology is the norm across UK public services, businesses and individuals.
The UK is recognised as the leader in education and skills training in Open technology.
Open technology forms the basis of the UK’s thriving knowledge economy.

Mission

To enable the UK’s leadership in Open Technology by influencing the development of suitable law, policy and practice.
To represent and bring together legal and policy leaders in Open Technology in the UK while building a body of expertise and experience in legal and policy matters.
To promote understanding of legal and policy matters relating to Open Technology across individuals, enterprise, and the public sector through education and the provision of tools and resources to enable the adoption of Open Technology.

Legal Work Group Chaired by Christopher Eastham

Joint Report with OSOR on state of Open Source in UK published July 2020
Amicus Brief Google v Oracle submitted March 2020
FOSS4SME and letter to MP’s shared January 2020
International Treaties – supported Brexit Trade Agreements
Response to new Legislation – ongoing
Tools and Education – ongoing
Joint Events planned with Society of Computers and Law

The group works in a proactive and reactive way, looking at necessary and forward looking policies and areas of change as well as responding to proposed legislation in the UK and beyond.

Legal Group Members

See our Legal Group Members

Text and Data Mining Open Letter

UK open source advocates, including OpenUK, are urging the government to ensure AI technologies have ample access to public data to aid the development of the UK AI sector. OpenUK is a signatory of the joint letter highlighting the issue and provided a proposal for a code of practice to guide AI IP legislation supporting TDM.

Open Letter