UK to reform data protection, throwing EU adequacy ruling into doubt

“The Commission’s original decision to grant the UK data adequacy was already legally questionable because the UK was repeatedly found to have breached EU law because of how British national security agencies collect personal data,” Zach Meyers, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, told EURACTIV. 

“If the UK diverges further away from the GDPR, then the Commission may feel it has no choice but to withdraw adequacy”, he said.

Minor reforms, he added, might not be found to jeopardise individuals’ GDPR rights in a serious way, but added that if the UK government pushes ahead with more revolutionary reforms, such as undermining the data protection regulator’s independence, “the Commission will have to consider carefully whether to withdraw adequacy.”