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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what plans he has to trigger UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement public policy exemptions if UK citizens’ data was to be transferred to third countries with lower levels of protection under the agreement.

The UK is preserving the effect of the EU's adequacy decision for Japan on a transitional basis because robust protections are in place for the international transfer of personal data. The UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) does not change this position in relation to onward transfers of UK personal data from Japan.

The CEPA article on cross-border flows (8.84.2) states that exceptions to the flow of data can be made to achieve “legitimate public policy objectives”. This means that if justified, either party could take action to restrict data flows.

CEPA addresses data flows between the UK and Japan and not onward transfers to other jurisdictions.