Governance, Procurement & Information Article
12 May, 2022
Background
During the Queen's Speech on 10 May 2022, the government announced it was introducing the Data Reform Bill to enable the UK to reform its data protection regime and deviate from EU rules established by the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR).
Following Brexit, the UK introduced the 'UK GDPR' which broadly implemented the provisions of the EU GDPR. The government now wishes to take advantage of Brexit and has stated that the purpose of the Bill is to:
Reform of the Current Data Protection Regime
The text of the Bill has not yet been published so we are unable to comment on the exact reforms that are included within the Bill. However, the Bill follows the government's consultation on data protection reform which closed in November last year. The reforms proposed included removing the following obligations from data controllers to:
Details of the full reforms proposed are set out in the Consultation which is available to view here - https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/data-a-new-direction
Comment
As yet the detail of the Bill is unknown as it has not yet been published. Whilst the intention behind the Bill is to reduce red-tape, it is difficult to see how the administrative burden will be reduced for organisations, particularly if the organisation has customers located in both the UK and the EU. Any significant departure from the existing data protection regime would mean organisations may have to run two separate data protection regimes - one for customers located in the UK and one for customers located in the EU. It also raises concerns for the EU's decision to grant the UK adequacy for data flows from the UK to the EU.
We will publish further information once the text from the Bill is made available.
For more information contact Bethany Paliga in our Governance, Procurement & Information department via email or phone on 01254 222347. Alternatively send any question through to Forbes Solicitors via our online Contact Form.
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