Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether the Government plans to diverge from EU standards for data protection after the end of the transition period.

The EU and the UK both have an ambition to achieve high data protection protection standards globally. The UK demonstrated this commitment with the successful passage of the new Data Protection Act 2018, which implements and transposes the GDPR and Law Enforcement Directive respectively in UK law.

The Act received Royal Assent on 23 May. It further strengthens UK data protection standards, ensuring they are fit for the modern age, and implements in full the EU’s new data protection framework in UK domestic law. Our data protection laws will therefore be fully aligned with the EU’s at our point of exit.