The Government has performed yet another U-turn by abandoning plans for new data laws that ditch GDPR to now put the EU adequacy agreement – that allows the free flow of data between the UK and Europe – “at the heart” of the finalised Bill.
The original plan has now gone the way of the “mini-Budget”, after a Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) official confirmed yet another public consultation on the data reforms.
This will be the second consultation following 2021’s “Data: A new direction”, which was launched last September, closed in November and resulted in the Data Protection & Digital Information Bill published in July this year.
This included bigger fines for rogue marketers, a soft-opt in for charity emails, relaxing the online cookies law and a shake-up of the Information Commissioner’s Office. At the time, ministers claimed the new laws would save firms £1bn over ten years; a claim which was disputed by many data protection experts who insisted the shake-up would cost firms more, not less.
However, before the Bill even reached its second reading in Parliament, Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan ramped up the rhetoric by saying the Government planned to replace GDPR with a “business- and consumer-friendly British data protection system… that will focus on growth and common sense, helping to prevent losses from cyber attacks and data breaches, while protecting data privacy”.
She added: “This will allow us to reduce the needless regulations and business-stifling elements, while taking the best bits from others around the world to form a truly bespoke, British system of data protection.”
Her comments received widespread condemnation from businesses and the data protection community.
But, speaking at a Westminster Forum event on data in the UK on Monday, DCMS deputy director for domestic data protection policy Owen Rowland maintained that data adequacy with the EU “is at the heart of the approach we are taking going forward”.
He also confirmed a new public consultation would be launched in the coming weeks, adding that said ministers “need space to work with all groups to check we go as far as we can to enable growth and innovation while protecting high standards and maintaining our parallel policy objective of looking after EU adequacy and doing so as quickly as possible”.
Quite what has triggered this change of heart is unknown but following the economic meltdown triggered by Liz Truss’ disastrous term in office and the looming recession, ministers might just have decided UK businesses need all the help they can get to trade in Europe, even if that does mean kowtowing to Brussels.
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