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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, for what reasons independent community pharmacies and other primary healthcare providers are designated as a public authority for the purpose of General Data Protection Regulation.

As primary healthcare providers and independent community pharmacies may be handling sensitive data about people's health, it is right that they should be subject to the same requirements as other public authorities. This includes appointing a data protection officer to inform and advise the organisation on compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation, such as the need to ensure that personal data is processed fairly and lawfully and held securely. A group of public authorities may appoint a single data protection officer, if that would be more appropriate to their size and organisational structure, as long as that person were easily accessible from each organisation.