back to article Act fast to get post-Brexit data deal, Brit biz urges UK.gov

The UK is risking a data economy worth £240bn if it doesn’t secure a “simple” transition deal that minimises disruption of data flows after Brexit, the Confederation of British Industry will warn today. According to the body - which represents UK businesses - the government has made the right noises about data protection …

  1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    The UK is risking a data economy worth £240bn if it doesn’t secure a “simple” transition deal that minimises disruption of data flows after Brexit, the Confederation of British Industry will warn today.

    To put it bluntly, as long as Generalissimus Josephina Vissarionovich May is in charge and has the same goals, the industry can forfeit all of this now and then and go straight to "plan B" (if they even have one).

    The likelihood of Eu agreeing a deal which is not governed by ECJ rises above NIL only when it has someone its size on the other side of the table. Otherwise it is "take the ECJ or leave it". UK alone is NOT in this category.

    1. Rich 11

      Really, VRH, how many times do I have to tell you not to undermine our beloved Prime Minister at such a critical time as that now facing our country. It's Josefina Vissarionovna.

      1. wolfetone Silver badge

        "Really, VRH, how many times do I have to tell you not to undermine our beloved Prime Minister at such a critical time as that now facing our country. It's Josefina Vissarionovna."

        That's a very convoluted way of referring to her by her proper title: Twat.

        1. Dave Schofield

          >That's a very convoluted way of referring to her by her proper title: Twat.

          You sir, are far too polite.

    2. phuzz Silver badge
      Terminator

      And you're all missing the icon that elReg have provided for us to use when talking about our strong and stable leader >>>>>>>>>>>>>

      1. wolfetone Silver badge
        Windows

        Wrong again >>>>

      2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Happy

        "when talking about our strong and stable leade"

        "Strong & stable."

        I'd forgotten she was claiming that was going to be the outcome of the election.

        Hilarious.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    £240bn

    Was the total value of UK exports with the EU last year.

    Maybe the believe the CBI are with the bearded hipsters that "everything is now the data economy!". Or maybe they're just quacking out of their arse. My money's on the latter.

    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: £240bn

      The financial services rely on the data deal. The likelihood of any passporting for Eu in the city if there is no data deal is NIL. If you add that to "classic data economy" your number may be significantly higher than 240Bn.

      1. codejunky Silver badge

        Re: £240bn

        @ Voland's right hand

        "The financial services rely on the data deal"

        Considering over 70% of the euro clearing is done in the UK and the EU failed to get a UK exodus of banks it really would be beneficial to both sides to cooperate.

        I hear the EU got a shock recently when they realised they do rely on our military services and that doesnt mean they can automatically assume such support if we cannot negotiate a deal. The EU seemed upset at their lack of will to negotiate resulted in them not negotiating the access they want.

        1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

          Re: £240bn

          EU failed to get a UK exodus of banks

          Have you been to Dublin lately? I suggest to go and book a duckmarine excursion around their docklands. You can observe the exodus in motion (with the cranes hastily stacking up the new buildings) with your own eyes. Some of it is declared openly as an exodus. Some of it is "additional office capacity"

        2. EricM

          Re: they do rely on our military services ...

          You mean planes and ships lacking spare parts and proper equipment for duty?

          Well, in fact these capabilities are also available in other EU states after Brexit.

          Thank you.

          1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
            Unhappy

            "You mean planes and ships lacking spare parts and proper equipment for duty?"

            Well the UK does have one of the Worlds most expensive aircraft carriers (and another on order), and it's not even nuclear powered.*

            I'm sure British taxpayers can feel justifiably proud of their contribution to BAe's revenues.

            *And of course it'll be even better when it gets some actual aircraft and weapons systems fitted.

            1. Slx

              Re: "You mean planes and ships lacking spare parts and proper equipment for duty?"

              Powered by eco friendly hot air and bluster?

        3. phuzz Silver badge

          Re: £240bn

          "I hear the EU got a shock recently when they realised they do rely on our military services"

          The main European defence organisation is NATO, and in case you hadn't realised, it's separate from the EU.

          There have been plans for military integration across Europe, but they kept getting derailed by one of the member countries, can you guess which country? I'll give you a hint, it's one that wants to leave the EU in 2019...

        4. Lars Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: £240bn

          @codejunky

          You are such an optimist, EU in shock and such, do you hear in a similar way as Trump. Should I point out that Britain like many other EU countries belong to NATO and that Britain does not have any specific British rules regarding NATO. Then there are EU countries outside of NATO who have newer claimed anything regarding the military service from Britain.

          I still think you just cannot comprehend that the EU is not a "country" but a union of 28 independent countries.

          As for British exports and imports (the world 2016 est) $412.1 billion and $581.6 billion.

          About 4-5 months ago on Yahoo there was a Brit so frustrated about the prospect of EU countries trying to "steal" some of the euro clearing from London that he started his rant with "We (the British) invented the world". Could it have been you.

          1. codejunky Silver badge

            Re: £240bn

            @ Lars

            "You are such an optimist, EU in shock and such"

            Not really. The shock comment was due to the news that the EU was suddenly upset about such a fact. As far as I remember I read it on the independent which is not brexit supporting. I dont need to be an optimist when the remain campaign basically stated the massive benefits of leaving, even if they framed it as bad news.

            "Should I point out that Britain like many other EU countries belong to NATO and that Britain does not have any specific British rules regarding NATO"

            I know that is why it amused me. I am guessing this is some extra intelligence sharing or something. I have no idea but it seems important enough to make the EU upset.

            "I still think you just cannot comprehend that the EU is not a "country" but a union of 28 independent countries."

            Actually keeping up with this, Junker has already made some sort of statement about core countries having to join the Euro, when we voted leave a French/German group was tasked with finding a way to 'sell' federalising (this was around the time of the brexit 'problem' being identified as needing more EU). Amusingly when people point out the 70's vote was not for the EU (which didnt exist) remainers tend to claim the aim was known and understood back then. Also we are negotiating with the supranational EU and banned from negotiating with the remaining 27 countries as they are not independent and have been banned by the EU from negotiating. Actually this is part of the economic and sovereign argument of leaving as the EU is a supranational government which has removed the independence of member countries and seeks to go further.

            "As for British exports and imports (the world 2016 est) $412.1 billion and $581.6 billion."

            So? Can you relate this to the discussion which is my reply to a previous comment about financial services data.

            "About 4-5 months ago on Yahoo"

            I dont use Yahoo. I am amused it still exists I will go check it out later.

            "EU countries trying to "steal" some of the euro clearing from London"

            I remember the hostile views from the EU and the disappointment they had when they were laughed off. The amusing problem for them being that they want the Euro to be an international reserve currency, which requires Euro clearing world wide, yet want to complain the Euro is cleared outside the EU in London.

            1. codejunky Silver badge

              Re: £240bn

              uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-trade/britain-not-at-back-of-queue-for-eu-trade-deal-commissioner-idUKKCN1BP1IU

              It would appear the EU do want a trade deal with the UK as a priority. Unfortunately their road blocks are getting in the way. Although this comes from "one of six Commission vice presidents at the EU executive" so maybe the rest of the committee disagrees or want to add 2 heads, 3 humps and 12 legs?

      2. Wensleydale Cheese

        A date (and time) to mark in your diary

        "The likelihood of any passporting for Eu in the city if there is no data deal is NIL."

        And from the main article:

        the UK will need a deal in place for “when the clock strikes midnight on March 29 2019”.

        Should we look at setting security certificate expiry dates at 2019-03-31T00:00:00 ?

  3. Adrian 4

    "Act fast" ?

    The government ? You can't blunder fast. It takes a lot of experimental failure to make any progress.

    1. Rich 11

      The only way this government will ever make the Brexit process go any faster is to blunder off the cliff edge and accelerate under gravity.

      It's going to hurt when we hit the rocks.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Its ok. No Deal is better than a bad deal. Unless you process personal data and are in breach of GDPR as a result of government incompetence.

    With a May 2018 deadline for GDPR, companies will need to make the decision very soon if they are going to split data into UK- and EU- chunks held in each area, or just move everything to the EU. Given the relative costs to migrate (with potentially cheaper ongoing support) or split, I guess we will see a lot of data (and associated jobs) leaving the UK unless there is any progress in the talks in this area by the end of this year...

    1. nsld

      Too late

      Many already have and have decided it will be easier to host all data in the EU27 and see what the ICO does rather than try to split or keep all data in the UK.

      Once we are a third country it just takes one adequacy decision in the ECJ and its game over for processing of EU citizens data, would you take that risk?

      1. Yes Me Silver badge
        Mushroom

        Re: Too late

        Exactly. And since in any case our negotiation as a 3rd party cannot start until Brexit day, and the evidence is that such negotiation plus ratification will take 4 years, there will be a 4 year hiatus in any case, unless Parliament gets off its arse, fires the empress, and sends the new Prime Minister off to negotiate withdrawal from Article 50.

    2. Lee D Silver badge

      I think some people miss the point. It's not about where we process our data, it's about whose data we are allowed to process

      Though you could process UK citizen's data, for example, you would not be able to touch the EU data. Thus 28 countries' data won't be able to just "be processed" in the EU and then shipped back to Blighty. Literally all that's gone. We would be a non-compliant country, to all intents and purposes, and like a UK company saying they process all your personal data in the Bahamas (currently illegal), we wouldn't be able to process any of the EU's data. They wouldn't give it to us, and we couldn't take it.

      That harms us more than it harms the EU. We've just taken ourselves out of that game and made life difficult to do business with them. As such, they'll do business with one of the other nations that can process their data without having to do a thing but tell their own data controller, rather than with us with whom it would be illegal to process their data.

      When you consider that we're the financial centre, banks will flee. Suddenly porting personal data between the EU and the UK is like trying to get blood out of a stone rather than an automatic sharing checkbox exercise.

      If you're an EU-wide bank with a UK headquarters - you have to set up and move everything back abroad anyway. May as well just go and leave a small UK-only business behind that is entirely separate. But you MUST move your data, so you must move your headquarters and the core business back to the EU.

      Literally, in terms of data, we can say "Don't go" as much as we like, but even for a multi-national company trading in all the EU countries, it would be illegal for them to process the majority of their own business's data in the UK, as it wouldn't be under EU-compliant data regulations. Unless we have exceptions from day one with EU sign-off, those foreign companies will splinter off a UK branch (at best) and then just disappear.

      That's a lot of business to lose. The same applies to everything from mobile phone providers to banks. Every EU-owned international company now has to effectively legally separate itself, and every UK-owned company has to jump through all kinds of hoops to try to do business with the EU as a foreign entity. It's not just as simple as "we'll do it ourselves". We would become a legal persona-non-grata in terms of processing any data to do with them, from the tiniest company up to the largest bank.

      We've effectively locked the door and then battened it shut, in a legal sense, and then expect people on the other side to do business with us. It took four years to sort out a small, quite-friendly, neutral and sensible country's data access. I wouldn't like to think how long it will take to get data compliance for the UK. I'm guessing a LOT longer than the UK has to do so.

      1. Slx

        If you’re an EU wide bank with a UK HQ, you’re are already abroad once Brexit happens.

        It would be a bit like a bank with US wide operations having it’s HQ in Japan.

        The UK seems to not be quite getting its head around what being a “third country” means. You’re going from “home turf” to “strange and far away land”. “Onshore” to “off shore” financial Centre.

  5. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Alert

    Not just GDPR

    Why isn't Dover a building site by now?

    There's no way around it, this is going to be a cliff-edge Brexit.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Not just GDPR

      "There's no way around it, this is going to be a cliff-edge Brexit."

      However the Brexiteers will read that as a White Cliffe-edge Brexit and cheer - because Vera Lynn.

    2. Wensleydale Cheese

      Re: Not just GDPR

      "Why isn't Dover a building site by now?"

      The Irish have started on projects to upgrade cargo facilities at the southern ports (Rosslare, Cork and Waterford) to handle additional import/export traffic directly to France.

      Plus there's another project to hook up the Irish electric grid directly to the French grid...

    3. Yes Me Silver badge

      Re: Not just GDPR

      Why do we need a building site? We have a perfectly fine lorry park already; two in fact (one called the M2, the other called the M20).

  6. oxfordmale78

    I am sure they need our data more then we need their data

    1. Lee D Silver badge

      They need their own data to be processed in a legally-compliant country more than either.

      As such their data is gone. They can still process our data if we want to let them. We can't process their data, though, without negotiating an exception, which means they can't bring their businesses over.

      Every EU-owned company just got told to cut off the UK arm of their business, effectively, if they process EU data.

  7. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    An informed commentator supplies a detailed analysis of HMG's position paper on the subject

    We wants it.

    We needs it.

    We mush have hard Brexit.*

    *That is about as detailed as HG has managed to produce so far.

  8. Tom Paine
    WTF?

    Fiddlesticks

    I bow to none in the devoutness of my remoanyness, but this is just silly. If we uimolement GDPR we'll be a hell of a lot more EU-aligned on data protection than the US, and I don't see them blocking transfers of PII over the Atlantic any time soon...

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Fiddlesticks

      "I don't see them blocking transfers of PII over the Atlantic any time soon"

      They have a cunning plan for that one. Every time the current fig leaf gets torn down by the courts they invent a similar one (rather like the Home Office's handling of investigative powers law). That's because keeping in with the US is important to the rest of the EU. Keeping in with the UK after Brexit won't rank so highly.

      1. codejunky Silver badge

        Re: Fiddlesticks

        @ Doctor Syntax

        "That's because keeping in with the US is important to the rest of the EU"

        Which is why it is funny that now the UK is at the front of the queue for a trade deal with the US and the EU isnt even at the back.

  9. arctic_haze

    After the Brexit

    If data stops flowing, I will miss the Reg.

  10. Slx

    Not going to be easy.

    Given the British government's penchant for data retention, spying on citizens and deep ties to US intelligence, I think this could be a very long negotiation.

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