The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) proposes to ‘reform’ the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), which are EU-wide, to a new, UK data regulatory framework, the UK GDPR.
See Open Rights for more details.
See also the Open Rights group statement of September 2021:
WHY ON EARTH IS THE GOVERNMENT MUCKING ABOUT WITH OUR PRIVACY LAWS?
Thursday evening, the UK Government published their long-awaited proposal for a new UK data protection regime. The new framework is the peak of a journey Open Rights Group has followed closely, starting from the National Data Strategy and down to the TIGRR report and the Digital Regulation Plan.
We will thoroughly analyse and react to Government consultation, but there is already enough that confirms our worst fears. Behind the fig leaf of ‘tougher penalties and fines for nuisance calls and text messages’, the UK Government has put forward a deregulating approach that would enable data uses based on commercial viability, with little regard of the externalities and resulting harms for UK residents. The UK Government will also try to game the EU adequacy system and allow international transfers of EU data to third countries with lower data protection standards, in an attempt to gain a competitive advantage against EU Member States.
This proposal marks a quite fundamental departure from the principles, enshrined in the data protection frameworks of the European Union and the Council of Europe, that innovation and the use of personal data should be centred on human rights and designed to serve mankind. If implemented, it is also likely to undermine the already weak UK adequacy decision — an outcome that would harm local businesses and damage UK aspirations to become an international standard-setter in this field”.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) published a 146 page consultation document on its proposals, with a closing date of November 19th 2021. The proposals had almost no publicity, so it is likely that very few people participated in the ‘consultation’.
However, Anna Pollert, secretary of South Warwickshire Keep our NHS Public, sent an email in response to the consultation on November 16th, which was acknowledged by the DCMS.
It is published here:
Dear DCMS,
I do not have time to complete the extremely long formal consultation document on revising the GDPR. It is far too long for the majority of the population and so is not really a viable public consultation. I see no efforts on your part to publicise the plans to engage citizens.
I wish to make a marker here on my objections:
At present, the GDPR protects individuals from harmful or discriminatory uses of their data. It does so by imposing a duty on organisations to use our data in a legal, transparent, and fair way.
The DCMS proposal, instead, frames human dignity as an obstacle in the way of innovation. Organisations are given leeway to harm and discriminate under the guise of “unleashing the power of data across the economy”.
It will allow organisations to re-use personal data for commercial use, particularly by broadening the definition of ‘research’ to include market research for commercial purposes. This allows for the commercialisation of our health data.
The proposals to liberalise the further use of data for reasons of “substantial public interest” begs the question of what “public interest” means. It would give the Government unprecedented power to apprehend records and data being stored by public or private organisations and look for “suspect” activities. Migrants are likely to be incredibly affected by such a regime, as they routinely hand over bank statements, utility bills and other documents to prove their right to work, to reside, or to rent in the UK.
The GDPR empowers individuals to know if and how an organisation is using their data, for what reason, as well as to delete, correct, or object to the use of this data.
The DCMS proposal, instead, treats our rights to know, choose and complain about how their data is used as an annoyance to get rid of. In particular, the proposal to charge for obtaining our data is a fundamental affront to our civil rights.
There is a great deal more to say, but, like most of the population, I do not have the time to spend hours on a 146 page document.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Anna Pollert
Keep Our NHS Public 