Parliament is considering a new Data Protection and Digital Information bill on the day (17 April) that the UK hosted an important international forum on global data standards.
The new bill will consider how consent for data collection is managed, with the government diverging from the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) protocols which had previously been retained after the country left the bloc.
According to Digit News, the new rules are being designed to offer businesses greater flexibility.
Keeping up with the EU
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) – UK’s data watchdog – will have a new statutory board in order to strengthen data protection laws and keep pace with European authorities.
Post-Brexit, the EU granted the UK data adequacy which allowed British businesses to continue to operate in the European market if its data protection rules do not diverge too much from those of the bloc.
Proposed legal changes will improve the UK’s position to make international data deals “a reward of Brexit” according to the government, which claims the new bill will contribute £4.7bn to the economy over 10 years.
Data minister Julia Lopez said that the “will maintain the high standards of data protection that British people rightly expect” while helping those using data to make the publics’ lives “healthier, safer and more prosperous.”
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology announced the bill debate to coincide with the UK hosting the Global Cross-Border Privacy Rules Forum (CBPR), which also started on Monday, reports the Solicitors Journal.
International deals
The CBPR will examine allowing countries like the UK to join as ‘associate members’, and how to reform the CBPR model to deal with privacy.
The forum is purportedly part of a US-led effort to shift control over international data standards away from the EU.
Lopez and tech and the digital economy minister Paul Scully are expected to participate in the three-day event, with officials telling Politico that this is part of London’s outsized role in figuring out what global digital rules should look like.
Alongside members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, the regional trading bloc from where the CBPR model originated, officials from Argentina, Bangladesh and Nigeria will also be present.
