Boris Johnson’s letter to the Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform (“TIGRR”) thanked them for “re-imagining” the UK’s approach to regulation and “making best use of our recently rediscovered freedoms”.
That work would require clearing “a path through the thicket of burdensome and restrictive regulation that has grown up around our industries over the past half century”. Data protection law was cited as an example of such a thicket.
Respondents to the government’s consultation, Data: A New Direction appear to have displayed little enthusiasm for thicket clearing. Many of TIGRR’s recommendations will not now be included in the Data Reform Bill. There is also a subtle but clear indication that the UK will be ratifying the Council of Europe’s modernised Convention 108+, which has been aligned with the GDPR. Although the devil is always in the detail when it comes to legislation, it appears that data reform in the UK may be measured, cautious and far less radical than might have been envisaged. This post aims to give a sense of the direction of travel on some of the key changes.
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