Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps the Government is taking to secure Data Adequacy recognition from the EU before the end of the transition period.

Continuing the free flow of personal data is an important objective for both the UK and the EU.

We have been in formal talks with the Commission since March 2020 to secure data adequacy decisions under both the General Data Protection Regulation and the Law Enforcement Directive.

Adequacy decisions would allow personal data to continue to flow freely from the EU/EEA to the UK. We have already legislated to enable, on a transitional basis, the free flow of UK personal data to Europe.

The EU’s adequacy assessments ascertain whether UK data protection standards are ‘essentially equivalent’ to the EU’s. Given we have an existing data protection framework that is equivalent to the EU’s, we see no reason why the UK should not be awarded adequacy.

Throughout the adequacy assessment we have engaged proactively and constructively, doing all we can to expedite our assessment. This included preparation of a technical pack of explanatory materials, which was shared formally with the Commission at the start of the adequacy assessment in March 2020 and published on GOV.UK.