The EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee has taken evidence on the EU Data Protection Directive and Regulation, the EU-US Privacy Shield, and the EU-US Umbrella Agreement from the tech industry. Questions included:
- How much room for manoeuvre will the Government have in practice on data protection policy if it wishes to maintain ‘unhindered’ flows of data with both the EU and the US?
- Can you give us a sense of the size and scope of the UK digital sector and how important data flows between the UK and the EU are to the UK economy?
- Assuming that the UK will be treated as a third country on data protection issues once the UK is no longer a member of the EU, what would be the impact on the digital sector if there were no ‘adequacy’ decision in place at the point of leaving the EU?
The Committee has questioned the UK Information Commissioner. Questions included:
- What is your assessments of how much room for manoeuvre the UK Government will have in practice on data protection policy post-Brexit if it wishes to maintain ‘unhindered’ flows of data with both the EU and the US?
- What changes do you anticipate may need to be made to the role and/or functions of the ICO post-Brexit?
- What are the main channels or for a through which the UK is able to influence global data protection standards and how much influence does the UK have? Would you expect that to change post-Brexit?
