26th August 2021
Like a dog that caught the car, the United Kingdom government is wondering what to do with Brexit.
Today’s offering, reported in the Telegraph is overhauling or replacing or something to do with GDPR – the European Union’s detailed data protection regime.
The flavour of the suggestion is in these tweets:
Exclusive: Ministers are preparing to overhaul the EU GDPR rules and replace with new British data privacy laws
Oliver Dowden says will spell end to 'pointless' cookie requests and red tape for biz
But diverging threatens to spark fresh row with EUhttps://t.co/v0jxMiki6V
— Harry Yorke (@HarryYorke1) August 25, 2021
The move could amount to first major regulatory change since Brexit, which Dowden refers to as the 'data dividend' of leaving.
He says the changes will cut costs for biz, allow data to be used more flexibly, and turbocharge UK's digital economy.
— Harry Yorke (@HarryYorke1) August 25, 2021
These cover lucrative commercial transfers of data, meaning UK firms could face costly new bureaucracy if adequacy revoked.
They also cover law enforcement cooperation
But Dowden says no case for tearing up agreements and that EU has recognised several non-GDPR regimes
— Harry Yorke (@HarryYorke1) August 25, 2021
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The proposal has the usual signs of superficial thinking, with the ‘ending red tape’ and ‘row with Brussels’ lines that are the substitute for any serious policy thought.
In fact, the rows will not be with Brussels – the European Union and its businesses will be at ease with the United Kingdom erecting yet another non-tariff barrier against the interests of British businesses.
The rows instead will be with those British businesses, which will now have two lots of red tape to negotiate instead of one.
This is so bleedingly obvious that it really should not need typing out.
None of this is to say that the GDPR is perfect legislation – it certainly is not.
But compliance with one technical and complicated regime is onerous enough – multiplying such regimes just because we can is folly.
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Ministers and their political and media supporters will clap and cheer at this exercise in nose-cutting in spite of a face.
The European Union, like bemused household cats, will just stare at the spectacle.
It is all rather silly, and rather depressing.
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The United Kingdom’s digital economy will not so much turbocharged but torpedoed.
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“This is so bleedingly obvious that it really should not need typing out” ….. “compliance with one technical and complicated regime is onerous enough – multiplying such regimes just because we can is folly.”
Yes, but that isn’t going to stop them. As you imply, the Government is truly struggling to find any way, however inane, to polish the Brexit turd, be it ‘reforming’ GDPR or appointing overweight ex cricketers to dazzle foreign businessmen.
It’s the Emperor’s new clothes every day in Brexit Britain, except it isn’t just one small child who sees the truth.
The fundamental misunderstanding in the UK, by Brexiters and Rejoiners alike, is a vast overestimation of the role the UK plays in the calculations of the EU. Very few decisions have any regard to the UK or its government. It does of course also mean that any attempt to rejoin EU or EEA is doomed until there is clear and incontrovertible proof that this is the desire of whatever the population is of the UK at that time. The hurdle is much bigger than in the UK debate.
Your last two sentences spell out the true tragedy of Brexit (tragedy in the Greek sense). We’ll be waiting for generational change and some of us can’t wait that long!!
I’m swearing already!
After all the work and sleepless nights that I and everyone else who had to ensure that their business complied with GDPR, this pathetic so-called government is going to scrap it!
It’s worse than that. They will not only scrap it. They will replace if with something else.
This creates additional burdens for data administrators and website creators all over the globe. Consider that any UK citizen who is studying or medical treatment abroad will have their records covered by GDPR, and now separate conditions will require a legal review snd implementation.
This is on top of existing costs for HIPPA (USA) and other regimes.
The likely outcome is not data safety but errors arising from human exhaustion.
Excellent points. I’m thinking, too, that (given that, in spite of Brexit, we are within the geographical orbit of the EU) it may well give rise to inadvertent errors than in turn could give rise to crippling legal action. Because, you know, we really are not – by ourselves – intrinsically better and more capable than our ex EU partners.
Unbelievable. I have nothing to say that may be worth as much as to say nothing.
One suspects that this will be like the CE mark, whose use has just been extended. This was presented as some sort of triumph for British industry, not as a failure of Brexit. It’s not as though the Government hasn’t got some real problems on its hands that it needs to tackle. I imagine that the Government thinks that the idea of scrapping GDPR will play well with the Red Wall, which may be why it’s being announced with so much noise.
Dear Mr Green please correct me if I am wrong but didn’t the Government asked the Parliament to allow its Ministers to rewrite all those EU rules that are part of the UK Laws without input, debate or scrutiny from Parliament. There must be hundrets and I am afraid CE and GDPR are just the start of this.
Since the Government, its advisors and the Civil Service must know that any business dealing with customers in the EU has to follow the GDPR, there must be something else going on here.
Most of our business is with companies in the EU. After Brexit but before equivalence was granted, we had to hire a data officer in the EU, just so we could continue to handle customer data. It didn’t cost much, but was a pain. The Gov. must have known about these obligations. So, what’s the real agenda?
Oh good. Replacing heavy-handed multinational EU bureaucracy with special “gold standard” UK red white and blue tape, that prioritises business interests over data privacy of individuals. What could possibly go wrong.
They need live the myth that our red tape problem is the EU’s fault, when actually it is more self-inflicted, a self-infliction that only gets worse.
So in that area dear to DAG’s heart, public procurement, here’s a huge tangle of new red tape, worse than any EU procurement red tape I’ve ever seen, that is currently the bane of my life. “New measures to deliver value to society through public procurement”. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-measures-to-deliver-value-to-society-through-public-procurement
In fact, Ivan, just to point out yet another example of fake regained sovereignty, what on earth hindered HMG to launch the “New measures to deliver value to society through public procurement” before Brexit “got done”?
Caricature et violence de l’histoire, if ever there was one.
Privacy laws are important, their advantage in civic society can be seen in the simplicity of German transport ticketing system. A system that allows passengers to use the transport in good faith that they follow the regulatory process.
It’s randomly checked with a penalty fine for transgressors. A cost effective minimalist system in the Pareto Principle context, for state and citizen, and it works because citizens must carry ID and can be identified. Compare and contrast to the cumbersome, expensive overstaffed and unreliable ticketing and turnstile system in operation on British transport, because transgressors can’t be reliably identified.
An important point to note in this is that German citizen protections were a written by politicians who experienced life under repressive governments who spied on them. They take their privacy seriously, and their laws reflect that. GDPR is EU law not German, but is not to be scoffed at, it’s hard won privacy, and there for good reason. It’s your line of defense, because when your own government puts its interest above yours, you’re in trouble.
Governments do that. Take it from me. I grew up under one that had a nasty habit of throwing its citizens off the top story it’s police headquarters.
If this government wants to rewrite GDPR, it’s in its interest, not ours.
This is strongly reminiscent of https://xkcd.com/927/. It’s particularly apt as we’re talking about the field of technology.