The House of Lords has announced it is about to release a report on what post-Brexit GDPR might look like.
Called Brexit: the EU data protection package, the report was written by the EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee and explores the implications of Brexit for maintaining unhindered cross-border data flows between the UK and the EU.
The implications for trade and police cooperation will be considered in general terms, as well as the release from the four elements of the EU's data protection package. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), The Police and Criminal Justice Directive, the EU-US Privacy Shield and the EU-US Umbrella Agreement are all under scrutiny.
During the course of its inquiry, the committee heard evidence from government ministers Baroness Williams of Trafford, minister of state for the Home Office, and Matt Hancock MP, minister of state for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
The Committee also heard from the Information Commissioner's Office and industry experts from techUK.
The news comes as almost a year before the General Data Protection Regulation comes into force, the German Federal Data Protection Act passed the final stage of Germany's legislative process.
Lennart Schüßler and Natallia Karniyevich, both from law firm Bird & Bird, said in a blog post: “The GDPAA will, with one exception outlined below, enter into force on 25 May 2018, and will substantially change the current German Federal Data Protection Act in order to align it to the GDPR, to make use of its derogations, and to implement the Law Enforcement Directive.”
They added, “Although the GDPR directly applies across the EU and its provisions prevail over national law, Member States retain the ability to introduce their own national legislation based on certain derogations provided for by the GDPR. These derogations include national security, prevention and detection of crime, and also apply in certain other important situations – the so-called 'opening clauses'.”
