New UK government to push for further divergence from GDPR

The new UK government will push further on data reform than previous proposals, preparing to replace the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with its own “bespoke” data protection scheme.

Speaking at the ruling Conservative Party’s annual conference Monday (3 October), Michelle Donelan, Prime Minister Liz Truss’ newly appointed Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, announced that the government “will be replacing GDPR with our own business and consumer-friendly British data protection system.”

Data reform efforts were already underway in the UK, which announced a proposal earlier this year to amend the version of the GDPR that London adopted post-Brexit.

The introduction of the changes cast doubt on whether the EU’s adequacy ruling, which allows EU-UK data transfers to continue despite the latter’s departure from the bloc, would be upheld. (...)