Civil Rights Group Urges EU to Cap UK Data Transfer Post-Brexit

A Civil Rights Group have urged the EU to limit the amount of data between the UK and the EU after Brexit.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has written to the European Commission urging it to limit transfers of data from the EU to the UK after Brexit over privacy concerns.

In a letter sent to the EC, Johnny Ryan, who recently joined the ICCL as a senior fellow after a role as chief privacy officer at the web browser Brave, said a data adequacy agreement for the frictionless transfer of personal data from the UK to the EU is “not possible. “

He claims the ICO cannot be relied on to protect European’s data rights- under a duty that is established in Article 45 of the GDPR legislation.

“The ICO has failed over the last two years to take any substantive action against the largest data breach that the UK and EU have ever experienced. It would be unreasonable to anticipate that it will perform any better after Brexit is complete,” Ryan wrote in the letter, which was sent to three European Commissioners, Margrethe Vestager (Competition and Digital), Didier Reynders (Justice) and Thierry Breton (Internal Market).

It continued: “The UK lacks an effective independent supervisory authority that is capable of enforcing compliance with data protection law and vindicating data subjects’ rights. As a consequence, the personal data of data subjects in the union do not at present have an adequate level of protection in the UK.”

The letter comes as talks aimed at finding a post-Brexit trade deal enter a crucial stage with late October now being considered the cut-off point for negotiations.

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