Brexit effects rumbling on (or not?)

The data protection world is still cogitating about the practical implications of the UK being out of the EU, even after the EU ‘adequacy’ decision.

This article in Third Sector, for example, suggests that the government could ‘overhaul’ GDPR to involve ‘less box ticking’, but without suggesting any details. Reading between the lines, much of the pressure appears to relate to cookie banners that appear intrusive and unnecessary.

Indeed, many organisations do seem to have ended up being overzealous and very user-unfriendly, which was not the intended consequence of the legislation which aimed to give users control over surreptitious tracking.

This may be an opportunity for the UK government to make small unilateral changes on ePrivacy, just to prove that they can, but it is unlikely that they would want to risk jeopardising the UK’s adequacy status by making any radical changes to the underlying data protection framework.

The EU is currently reviewing ePrivacy, but without a definite decision date.

About Paul Ticher

Paul is author of Key Guides: Data Protection for voluntary organisations published in Jan 2021.

He is an independent specialist, with over 30 years’ experience of data protection in the voluntary sector. However, he is not a lawyer. This article may not be a complete or accurate statement of the law, and it is not intended to be legal advice. It is also based on information available at the time of writing in September 2021.

If you have any questions on this blog, please do contact Paul at paul@paulticher.com