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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what progress the Government has made in securing an agreement on data adequacy with the EU.

Although the EU-UK Trade & Cooperation Agreement (TCA) was agreed and implemented before the end of the transition period, the EU left insufficient time to complete and adopt its data adequacy decisions for the UK by the 31 December 2020.

We have therefore agreed with the EU a time limited ‘bridging mechanism’ as part of the TCA. The mechanism will allow personal data to continue to flow as it did previously whilst EU adequacy decisions for the UK are adopted, and for no longer than 6 months.

We continue to engage constructively with the European Commission and see no reason why the UK should not be granted adequacy and the process concluded promptly.