The UK's Draft Adequacy Decision - The Wider Impacts For Data Privacy

The EU Commission has signalled its intention to grant the UK an adequacy decision allowing the free flow of personal data from the EU to the UK. See our earlier article here.

Now that the full text of the draft adequacy decision for transfers under the General Data Protection Regulation has been published, two key points emerge: (i) that the UK effectively remains tied to the EU regime and the European Convention on Human Rights if it wishes to retain adequacy; and (ii) the UK might have come up with the solution everyone has been looking for to align the competing interests at play in managing data privacy.

The UK's limited room for manoeuvre

Although it will keep data flowing from the EU to the UK, the draft adequacy decision is heavily caveated with warnings about what will happen if the UK seeks to diverge from the EU position - ultimately, the adequacy decision will be revoked. So, the room for manoeuvre for the UK in the way it handles personal data