The challenge will be balancing competition, innovation, and high data protection standards as the UK tries to take on Europe
An ambitious strategy to make the UK an attractive destination for data: The UK Government is not holding back when it says it has an ambition to become “the world’s number one data destination”. The bold statement comes as the DCMS published its response to the National Data Strategy consultation. The strategy sits on five pillars: unlocking the value of data across the economy, securing a pro-growth and trusted data regime, transforming government’s use of data, ensuring the security and resilience of infrastructure, and championing the international flow of data. To achieve these, the Government promises to do its part to facilitate data availability and sharing across sectors and regions.
Could there be a departure from the GDPR? The Government will face the challenging task of having to balance competition, innovation, and high data protection standards. There are signs that a departure from the GDPR is on the cards, as the Government is hinting at an “outcome-based approach” instead of the “burdensome paperwork” often associated with GDPR that can misdirect resources away from keeping data safe. This aims to remove unnecessary barriers to data use , and to allow the UK to strike data partnerships with some of the fastest growing economies in the world. A code of practice for data sharing (developed with the ICO), has now been laid before Parliament, and will dictate how firms give access to data to third parties. At the same time, the Government is looking to foster competition in access to data, noting that the Digital Markets Unit within the Competition and Markets Authority will be an instrument to that effect.
Getting a head start in the challenge with the EU: With its data strategy, the UK is positioning itself to compete head-on with the EU in the data economy. It is hoping it can leverage on favourable conditions such as a thriving tech start-up scene and a strong ability to attract investment. The DCMS estimates that the UK attracted £1.8bn in funds to businesses adopting or developing AI-based technologies in 2020 – more than twice as much as France and Germany combined. The EC’s Data Strategy looks to leverage on the amount of industrial data produced by the EU, and to facilitate the pooling and sharing of these data assets. It remains to be seen whether businesses will consider the scale of the EU market more attractive than the pro-innovation framework the UK is clearly looking to build.
