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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if he will publish the Government’s response to the European Parliament’s resolution on the compatibility of the UK’s use of mass surveillance powers with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

The European Union adopted adequacy decisions on 28 June 2021, confirming its independent assessment of the United Kingdom’s high data protection standards.

European Union adequacy decisions are adopted through a unilateral process controlled and managed by the European Commission. It is for the European Commission to decide how it responds to the European Parliament’s non-binding resolution on the matter.

United Kingdom intelligence agencies and law enforcement bodies neither conduct, nor seek to conduct, mass surveillance. We have discussed this issue in detail with the European Commission and they have rightly concluded that the UK’s national security framework meets the European Union’s adequacy test.