What is happening with the Government’s proposal for UK GDPR reform? Just like Donald Trump’s predicted “Red Wave” in the US Mid Term Elections, it’s turning out to be a bit of a ripple!
In July the Boris Johnson Government, published the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill. This was supposed to be the next step in its much publicised plans to reform the UK Data Protection regime following Brexit. The government projected it would yield savings for businesses of £1billion over ten years. (Key provisions of the bill are summarised in our blog post here.)
On 3rd October 2022, during the Conservative Party Conference, Michelle Donelan, the new Secretary for State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), made a speech announcing a plan to replace the UK GDPR with a new “British data protection system”.
The Bill’s passage through Parliament was suspended. It seemed that drafters would have to go back to the drawing board to showcase even more “Brexit benefits”. There was even talk of another round of consultation. Remember the Bill is the result of an extensive consultation launched in September 2021 (“Data: A New Direction”).
Last week, Ibrahim Hasan, attended the IAPP Conference in Brussels. Owen Rowland, Deputy Director at the DCMS, told the conference that the latest “consultation” on the stalled bill will begin shortly. However he confirmed it will not be a full-blown public consultation:
“It’s important to clarify (the type of consultation). However, we are genuinely interested in continuing to engage with the whole range of stakeholders. Different business sectors as well as privacy and consumer groups,” Rowland said. “We’ll be providing details in the next couple of weeks in terms of the opportunities that we are going to particularly set up.”
The Bill may not receive a deep overhaul, but Rowland said he welcomes comments that potentially raise “amendments to (the existing proposal’s) text that we should make.” He added the consultation is being launched to avoid “a real risk” of missing important points and to provide “opportunities were not fully utilising” to gain stakeholder insights.
Rowland went on to suggest that the DCMS would conduct some roundtables. If any of our readers are invited to the aforementioned tables (round or otherwise) do keep us posted. Will it make a difference to the content of the bill? We are sceptical but time will tell.
This and other GDPR developments will be discussed in detail on our forthcoming GDPR Update workshop. Are you an experienced GDPR Practitioner wanting to take your skills to the next level? See our Advanced Certificate in GDPR Practice.
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