Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the effect of divergence on EU data protection rules on the UK receiving an adequacy agreement from the EU.
The European Commission has the power to determine whether a country outside the EU offers an adequate level of data protection to transfer data with EU member states. “Adequacy” requires that high data protection standards are met, it does not require countries to have identical laws.
As with all policy areas, it is important that the UK retains the ability to set its own policy, laws and regulations. Data protection and data rights are no different. Data protection laws will inevitably naturally develop as technology and business practices change.
The UK is committed to making sure we have high data protection standards and will have an independent policy on data protection at the end of the transition period. We remain committed to seeking “adequacy decisions” from the EU.