back to article UK.gov's Brexiteers warned not to push for divergence on data protection laws

British government ministers have been told not to peddle the idea that trade agreements are incompatible with continued compliance with European data protection laws. As the country's ruling Conservative Party continues to grapple with Brexit negotiations and internal frictions, tech industry bodies have said that diverging …

Page:

  1. nsld

    All thats missing

    Is 'Deep and Special' in the mix for the full soundbite speech from the Maybot, although she probably used that at some stage.

    20 months post referendum and not a plan in sight, not even a sniff of one, its as if they have no idea what they are doing.......

    If ever we needed a lesson in the importance of the rule of 5 P's its the current debacle around Brexit.

    1. tiggity Silver badge

      Re: All thats missing

      5Ps?

      Surely yo mean 6P?

      P**s Poor is compulsory in the UK version

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Gimp

        "seek a bespoke arrangement..the UK’s exceptionally high standards of data protection,”"

        Are you fu**ing kidding me? Is this women off her meds again?

        This is the country that wants to pimp it's whole medical record system to Google FFS.

        1. Chris G
          Pint

          Re: "seek a bespoke arrangement..the UK’s exceptionally high standards of data protection,”"

          Damn! I had just copied that sentence and then saw your comment. Have one on me!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: All thats missing

      Come on, we're going for a strong and stable, red, white and blue, deep (and special), hard, soft, smooth, hard Brexit with no / some / a little / lots / total divergence from the EU / reality with the intention of loosening / strengthening regulation in key areas of agreement / disagreement to bring us into line with trading norms as specified in EFTA / NAFTA / TPT / WTO / Narnia just like the agreement with Canada / Norway / South Korea / the days of Empire - but with knobs on.

      What is so confusing about all that?

      1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

        Re: All thats missing

        The "red white and blue" Berxit is so mixed up it is very much turning out a brown Brexit.

    3. streaky
      Boffin

      Re: All thats missing

      20 months post referendum and not a plan in sight, not even a sniff of one, its as if they have no idea what they are doing.......

      There is a plan I'll let you into the secret.. it's really complicated..

      Want to know it?

      The UK is leaving the EU. The end. Get over it already, it's happening regardless of what you want. On the what happens next - it's completely irrelevant, the EU doesn't want any sort of deal they've made that clear and for the UK that's far and away the best outcome sooooo.. The negotiations are a complete charade from both sides.

      Before you get uppity downvote me for truth: I'm just relaying reality here, get a grip on yourselves.

      1. Ken 16 Silver badge
        Childcatcher

        Is that you Rees-Mogg?

        Who taught you how to use an electric typewriter?

      2. Ken 16 Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: All thats missing

        I upvoted, because that's an accurate summary.

        The UK is leaving the EU (and other subsidiary institutions that didn't get mentioned in the referendum) and it's happening regardless of what British subjects think and what happens next is completely irrelevant to the original decision or stated purposes.

        The EU would be happy to deal (as an institution) but relies on getting the support of 27 member countries and their sub-national assemblies so that's not going to happen quickly if the deal is different to ones already agreed for other 3rd countries. The UK has a small but powerful clique of MPs who would prefer to leave without a deal so they aren't going to help things along by agreeing to any existing arrangement as all are visibly less beneficial than staying in the EU.

        Too late now, just sit back and watch the car crash in slow motion.

        1. Yes Me Silver badge
          Angel

          Re: All thats missing

          "Too late now, just sit back..."

          It isn't too late. It only takes 350 MPs to fix this. They need some courage (to ignore the Tory and Labour whips) but it's their duty. That's why there's a Renew party.

          1. F0rdPrefect
            FAIL

            Re: All thats missing

            But there is no EU mechanism to reverse article 50.

            And even if we decided that we wanted to stay the terms to remain would probably be worse than those if we leave.

            And that is ignoring the damage it would do to democracy in this country.

            1. Roland6 Silver badge

              Re: All thats missing

              >But there is no EU mechanism to reverse article 50.

              Yes there is no formally defined mechanism, however Article 50 doesn't define the contents of the "Withdrawal Agreement", only who has to agree to the contents. Thus it is perfectly possible to have a "Withdrawal Agreement" that agrees for the UK to remain in membership; as T.May said "Brexit means Brexit"...

              1. streaky

                Re: All thats missing

                The *only* way for the UK to "reverse" brexit now is to rejoin. Single currency and a 30 year waiting list. Not worth our time even if you're a remainer. I see at least 22 people are easily confused by truth though.

  2. }{amis}{
    Black Helicopters

    Fingers in Pies....

    Now we will need to see weather the front bench has the stomach to tell the home office to back down so as not to risk the UK's trade relationship with the rest of the EU going forward.

    1. BebopWeBop

      Re: Fingers in Pies....

      Don't worry I believe we have been assured that we can have our data and sell it.

      1. BebopWeBop

        Re: Fingers in Pies....

        And of course every one elses......

    2. JimmyPage Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: Fingers in Pies....

      Fingers in ears more like.

  3. Gio Ciampa

    "greater freedoms"

    Meaning: "greater bungs from our mates who'll sell on the pleb's data to anyone"

    Case in point - the DVLA - they'll sell your reg number to pretty much anyone as it is (especially those lovely sharks claiming to be car park enforcement agencies) ... I dread to think what they'd do with more freedom.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "greater freedoms"

      Case in point: I registered the death of an uncle at 11am at the Registrar's Office, by 3pm the aunt's phone was ringing - sales calls from representatives of the death industry... We were particularly amused by the US funeral parlour's call...

  4. Tessier-Ashpool

    The Law of Unintended Consequences

    ...says that Liam Fox's carpet will be covered in pieces of toast butter-side down.

    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: The Law of Unintended Consequences

      I thought the traditional covering of the season is the cake which we are somehow having and eating at the same time.

    2. Trumpet Winsock

      Re: The Law of Unintended Consequences

      Ah, the "Disgraced former Defence Secretary Liam Fox" to give him his full and proper title.

      I just wish the press would always quote his full title when referring to him, just to remind people what a little shit he is.

  5. Warm Braw

    BoJo's divergence priorities

    ... are - according to the FT's reporting of his recent "major" speech - fishing quotas, the banning of live animal transport, value added tax rates on domestic fuel, and the need for environmental impact assessments, covering newts and snails, for new houses. Oh, and new banking products.

    Meanwhile, almost everyone with an economic interest in the outcome of Brexit is lobbying hard for everything else to stay the same. Is the only concrete result of Brexit going to be that we have taken back control of our ability to displace amphibians and gastropods?

    1. Peter2 Silver badge

      Re: BoJo's divergence priorities

      Meanwhile, almost everyone with an economic interest in the outcome of Brexit is lobbying hard for everything else to stay the same.

      Obviously?

      Anybody doing well at the moment wants to continue doing well. People who might do well as a result of future changes (ie, imposition of tarrifs making it attractive to make things in the UK/fishing quota changes) aren't doing well at the moment, and therefore don't have huge amounts of money to spend in lobbying/bribing politicans to pay attention to them.

      1. Warm Braw

        Re: BoJo's divergence priorities

        people who ... don't have huge amounts of money

        I'm afraid if you're going to invest in manufacturing in the UK you're going to need money, unless you're planning to live off the profits from hand-turned chair legs. This is the problem with the Brexit fantasy, it assumes that some new economic nirvana can somehow spring from nothing.

        Nissan alone employs around 7000 people in Sunderland and around 20,000 in its UK supply chain. There are approximately 11,500 fishermen in the entire UK. There's no rational argument to disadvantage Nissan in order to increase Britain's Fairisle Sweater production.

        1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
          Unhappy

          "Nissan..employs around 7000 people in Sunderland and around 20,000 in its UK supply chain."

          But don't worry, Brexit will soon fix that and those oppressed workers will soon be "Taking back control" of their leisure time.

          Never forget this BS was all about stopping defections from the Conservative party and killing UKIP.

          Everything else is just TPB* BS

          *Tory Posh Boy.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          but Britain can harness the white heat of the technological revolution

          to sell new and innovative products to the Empire and the World!

    2. Adam 52 Silver badge

      Re: BoJo's divergence priorities

      "Is the only concrete result of Brexit going to be that we have taken back control of our ability to displace amphibians and gastropods?"

      Unfortunately not. The concrete results already are a mad woman as Prime Minister, economic slowdown, higher prices, more racist violence, loss of skilled workers and an erosion of civil liberties. And that's before we've even left.

      1. Warm Braw

        Re: BoJo's divergence priorities

        a mad woman as Prime Minister

        Back to the 1980s, already, then...

        1. Professor Clifton Shallot

          Re: BoJo's divergence priorities

          Although Maggie got the UK into a the Single Market.

          I don't know why Remainers don't make more of the fact that Brexit is tearing up Thatcher's legacy - it seems to me there's considerable overlap of the Brexit and Thatcherphile areas of the Venn diagram whose loyalty to the former might be tested.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: BoJo's divergence priorities

            As bad as the “government” are, the “opposition” seem to be as clueless.

          2. Roland6 Silver badge

            Re: BoJo's divergence priorities

            >Although Maggie got the UK into a the Single Market.

            No, she was one of the founders of the European Single Market, largely because it would be helpful to the UK's export trade. So it is even more concerning that people haven't been using this against the Conservative party. In some respects, Margaret Thatchers statue should be placed in Parliament Square, but in a position where MPs are constantly reminded of her.

            The laugh is that Maggie, managed to change the EEC in fairly short time; something Brexiteers say is not possible to do with the EU...

            Additionally, whilst she didn't want to be part of the EU political union, she was sufficiently astute to realise that the UK's interests would be best protected by being a member of the EU and so having a place at the EU policy-making table. The laugh about this is today we have a cabinet of supposedly intelligent MPs and an expensive Whitehall department who having spent umpteen months grappling with Brexit, all of whom seem to not have grasped this simple fact.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: BoJo's divergence priorities

      ' Is the only concrete result of Brexit going to be that we have taken back control of our ability to displace amphibians and gastropods?'

      And sell them dodgy mortgages for their new homes.

  6. iron Silver badge

    If the UK had more lax data protection rules than the EU it wouldn't make a difference. Anyone wanting to do business in Europe has to comply with GDPR no matter where in the world they are based so UK businesses would end up with two different data protection schemes that they have to comply with, making the whole thing cost even more than it will with GDPR alone.

    1. Nick Kew

      That applies in all areas of regulation for anyone trading in both UK and EU. As soon as our regulations diverge from theirs, it's a doubling of Red Tape. Particularly onerous in areas where compliance costs millions - like getting new medicines approved.

    2. codejunky Silver badge

      @ iron

      "UK businesses would end up with two different data protection schemes that they have to comply with, making the whole thing cost even more than it will with GDPR alone"

      Doubt it-

      Business not dealing with the EU= lax rules.

      Business dealing with the EU= GDPR.

      Business dealing with anyone other than EU= whatever their laws require.

      Businesses trading in the world must meet the requirements of the countries they trade with, EU or not. So trading with the EU would be like trading with anywhere else in the world.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: @ iron

        Wouldn't work. The EU would insist the very least on a personal data firewall between businesses not dealing with the EU and businesses dealing with the EU, and it'd probably be easier just to say the UK is considered a non-GDPR friendly country unless regulations match the GDPR.

        1. codejunky Silver badge

          Re: @ iron

          @ Dan 55

          "The EU would insist the very least on a personal data firewall between businesses not dealing with the EU and businesses dealing with the EU"

          You mean different businesses? Some businesses doing business with the EU and others not? That oddly is a very correct statement even now. But only those doing business with the foreign country need follow the rules of the foreign country, as we do with the rest of the world.

          1. Dan 55 Silver badge

            Re: @ iron

            Please tell me you are aware that businesses sell people's personal data on to other businesses, right?

            But only those doing business with the foreign country need follow the rules of the foreign country, as we do with the rest of the world.

            No, businesses in the UK that hold extra-EU data still have to follow the DPA and businesses in the UK that want to store people's personal data extra-EU have to have a legal framework like Privacy Shield (which isn't worth the paper it's written on, but anyway).

      2. strum

        Re: @ iron

        >Businesses trading in the world must meet the requirements of the countries they trade with, EU or not

        I keep seeing this garbage.

        No business only does business with one other business. There are chains of commerce, sometimes involving dozens of businesses, often crossing many frontiers. None of them can drop their standards below the highest level encountered.

        Brexit isn't a get-out clause for that, it's a locked-in-without-representaion clause.

        1. codejunky Silver badge

          Re: @ iron

          @ strum

          "I keep seeing this garbage."

          And it is garbage to you because you dont seem to understand it.

          "There are chains of commerce, sometimes involving dozens of businesses, often crossing many frontiers"

          A concept which breaches outside the walls of the EU. If the EU exists purely on its internal resources it turns into the USSR (expanding to claim more resources but not developing). So to claim the world doesnt work unless it is within the borders of the EU is to exclude the world from existing.

          "None of them can drop their standards below the highest level encountered"

          Hmm. I see the misunderstanding is strong. I want food. I buy food, say from a country with lower standards than the country I sell to. But what I sell to that country is compliant with that country. The buyer gains to their standards, I gain to my standards, the food supplier gains also. Apply to a world of many transactions of many services and products where the EU has its little borders of standards (not mocking) and all the other countries with their own little borders of their own standards. Your claim suggests nobody does business. You are wrong.

          "Difference is, we have never had any say in those standards. We are surrendering our say in the standards of the world's biggest market."

          Nooooo, dont be so wrong. We are not surrendering our say in the standards of the US and China. We have no say over their standards! Even the EU doesnt. Their standards are up to them, the EU's up to the EU and they negotiate trade to meet a set of agreed standards (acceptable either way). The only standards we might have some influence on in the EU is possibly the EU standards but 1/28th of an influence but bound by all. We leave and we influence 100% of the UK's standards.

    3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      "If the UK had more lax data protection rules than the EU it wouldn't make a difference. Anyone wanting to do business in Europe has to comply with GDPR no matter where in the world they are based so UK businesses would end up with two different data protection schemes"

      ?????? If we had more lax data regulations in the UK than GDPR we'd then have two schemes, out own and GDPR. If we stick with GDPR we have one.

      And do you want to have less good protection of your personal data? If so, why?

      1. codejunky Silver badge

        @ Doctor Syntax

        "?????? If we had more lax data regulations in the UK than GDPR we'd then have two schemes, out own and GDPR"

        And yet there are a lot of countries in this world, each with their own standards and laws, each trading with each other. I suggest you and Dan go suggest the world submit to the warm embrace of the EU. Go on it will be funny.

    4. Roland6 Silver badge

      >Anyone wanting to do business in Europe has to comply with GDPR no matter where in the world they are based so UK businesses would end up with two different data protection schemes that they have to comply with

      Well given it is almost a certainty that UK law will be found to be inadequate the only real solution will be to have an EU registered and located business that does all the GDPR compliant work, complete with all the necessary 'walls' between EU and non-EU worker access to data; leaving the UK operation to deal with UK/non-EU work.

      If you need a real-world example, just look at the EU-US data protection relatonship...

      Naturally, few if any jobs will leave the UK, but all the new jobs will be outside of the UK...

  7. James 51
    Trollface

    Of course, we could go one better an have higher privacy standards and not allow the EU to hold UK citizen's information until they meet our standards.

    I would have used an icon with ET riding a unicorn over a rainbow towards a pot of gold but instead semi-seriously, see icon.

  8. Halcin

    So, Everyone is advocating we comply with EU regulations, but without the ability to effect what said regulations are?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Until we disagree then they impose tariffs as punishment and we all start paying through the nose for perfumes.

    2. James 51
      Boffin

      @Halcin, exactly. Nice to see you've got the grasp of things. Just as we have no say on the standards on the stuff we export to the US or China or any other trading block.

      1. strum

        >Just as we have no say on the standards on the stuff we export to the US or China or any other trading block.

        Difference is, we have never had any say in those standards. We are surrendering our say in the standards of the world's biggest market.

    3. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      So, Everyone is advocating we comply with EU regulations, but without the ability to effect what said regulations are?

      Advocating - no. Stating the bleeding obvious that this is a "take it or leave it" case - yes. It cannot be negotiated unless one has an economy of the same size (or bigger) than the Eu, a couple of carrier groups and a fleet of nuclear missile submarines. Size matters I am afraid. If you do not have the size your only option is "take it or leave (it)"

Page:

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like