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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what provisions he has made to ensure that in the event of no agreement being reached under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union no data that originates outside the UK will be transmitted to the EU without a data adequacy arrangement.

As part of the UK’s future relationship with the EU, we want to achieve a deal on data protection that provides stability and confidence for EU and UK business, public bodies and individuals, to maintain and develop the UK’s strong trading, economic and security links with the EU. That is why the government recently set out in our White Paper (available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-future-relationship-between-the-united-kingdom-and-the-european-union) that we are ready to begin preliminary discussions on an adequacy assessment, so that a data protection agreement, allowing for the continued protection and exchange of personal data, is in place as soon as possible. Following the UK’s exit from the EU, the government will control the flow of data from the UK to other countries, while the EU will control the flow of data from the EU.

Whilst we are confident that achieving an agreement on adequacy is in the interests of both the UK and the EU, a responsible government should prepare for all potential outcomes. As such, we will continue to engage with organisations that transfer personal data across borders to help them understand how they would need to operate under a range of outcomes on data protection.