IoT device compliance in Georgia
The market for the internet of things (IoT) is growing rapidly: connected sensors, smart household appliances, industrial controllers and wearable devices. Georgia has no separate statute devoted to IoT — and this must be said plainly. Another regulatory framework does exist: the Georgian Law on Electronic Communications, which applies to devices when a radio transmitter is built into them.
Among the definitions of Article 2 of the law is the user's terminal equipment: technical equipment intended for the receipt of an electronic communications service by a subscriber or end user, placed at a mobile or fixed address and not forming part of the operator's network. Most IoT devices — including those equipped with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular and LoRa modules — fit precisely into this concept. The first question of IoT compliance is therefore formulated as follows: does the device have a radio transmitter, and does it fall within the definition of terminal equipment?
The Certification Requirement and Its Link to Licensing
Article 59 of the law regulates the certification of radio installations and telecommunications terminal equipment. Certification is carried out in accordance with the regulation approved by the Commission. Under its second paragraph, certification is performed by examination centres and laboratories accredited, on the Commission's recommendation, with the Georgian National Agency for Standardization, Metrology and Certification. Where an accredited centre violates the relevant normative acts, its accreditation is revoked — the market itself is thus also controlled.
Under the third paragraph, certification is carried out in compliance with the relevant technical norms. In practice this means: the importer or seller of an IoT device must ensure that the device has a certificate issued by an accredited laboratory, linking its radio-frequency parameters to the technical norms.
The corresponding norm of the law — the provision applied as the first part of Article 64 — regulates the rule of conflict: where the electronic communications law establishes a procedure for the issuance of licences and the verification of licence conditions different from the general licensing law, the electronic communications law applies. This means that the special rules of the field are not subordinate to the general ones — and knowledge of precisely the special framework is decisive when entering the device market: qualification of the device, the certification route and the general requirements are assessed as one whole.