Brexit should not affect the UK’s participation in enforcing GDPR.
Speaking in the opening keynote at the IRMS conference in Brighton, Louise Byers, head of risk and governance at the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), said that the response to “this uncertainty” has been to set two clear goals:
- The first is to maintain a high value of data protection for UK citizens and consumers wherever their data resides. “It includes uninterrupted data flows to Europe and the rest of the world and legal certainty for business and law enforcement.
- The second is to continue to play a full role in EU institutions and maintain a strong working relationship with the European Data Protection Board, the EU body in charge of the GDPR.
“We’re making progress on both fronts,” she said. “The Government has made good on its promise to fully implement the GDPR and it is going further through the Data Protection Bill and other legislation. In two recent speeches, the Prime Minister made the case for an ongoing role for the ICO in the European landscape.”
Byers admitted that is was unclear what that future role will include, but the ICO remains deeply committed to being embedded in the EU data protection community.