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[To Eurosmart members only]
Commission adopts EU-UK data flow deal
Yesterday [28 June], the European Commission adopted two adequacy decisions that ensure data can freely flow from the EU to the UK. This includes personal data and law enforcement data. The European Commission highlighted that EU citizens’ data will benefit in the UK from an essentially equivalent level of protection to that guaranteed under EU law. For instance, the European Commission explains that, in the UK, the collection of data by intelligence authorities is, in principle, subject to prior authorisation by an independent judicial body.
This adoption comes after strong criticism from MEPs, the European Data Protection Board and privacy activists. The UK government has several times announced that it would diverge from the EU’s privacy standards to make more profitable use of data.
The European Commission underlined that the deal includes strong safeguards for data protection and a sunset clause. This sunset clause limits the duration of the deal to four years. This means that, if the UK diverges too much from EU rules, the EU could revise its strategy -and potentially not renew the deal.
It is estimated that in case of a no-deal on data protection the British economy would have suffered a loss of £ 1,6 billion. Three-quarters of the UK’s international data flows are with the EU.
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