Over the last few weeks Lighthouse IG and others have been working together to write an open letter/article to the Government outlining our concerns with the Bill and calling on a future Government to look at DP reform and controls on AI with industry, individuals and the profession in mind.
But then the ICO taking RM seriously is a pipe dream, so maybe I’m just shouting into the abyss. Who knows!
It will be interesting to see how the Bill progresses through Parliament. Once we know a little more concrete information, I’ll reassess and decide if a change in career is in order.
Is this Bill a nasty reversal of Data Protection law, possibly. Does it remove that ‘pesky EU legislation’ from our law, no not really. To me, it comes across and tampering with a law for the sake of tampering. Keeping the windows the same so it looks like we are playing ball with our EU commitments, while actually moving the furniture and redecorating to make it even more confusing for UK based Data Controllers.
Overall, it’s neither a good or bad thing in my opinion. There are some good things in there, they are also some things that, depending on the wording of the proposed bill, could send Data Protection in the UK back to a 1998 act level.
The Government is clearly out for what they see as ‘red tape’. I suspect, and this is a personal opinion here, that no argument on the benefit of something like ROPA will get past their Brexit stuff ears. Therefore I strongly suspect Article 30, as we know it today, in the UK is likely to not exist for too much longer.