from Hacker News

UK to overhaul privacy rules in post-Brexit departure from GDPR

by tompagenet2 on 8/26/21, 11:14 AM with 64 comments

• by DrBazza on 8/26/21, 12:07 PM

  There's a name for this - when a large bloc of countries require something legally, and the rest of the world end up following.

  You can probably "thank" the EU for not having to carry around individual LG, Samsung, Anker, Sony, Apple, whoever charging bricks:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply

• by mrunkel on 8/26/21, 12:23 PM

  This translates to: "We are not going to require consent for data collection."

• by prof-dr-ir on 8/26/21, 1:11 PM

  If UK privacy law starts to deviate significantly from GDPR then the EU commission will not hesitate to withdraw its 'equivalence' decision on UK privacy rights [0]. This will hamper the flow of data from the EU to the UK, the costs of which to UK businesses will more than offset any "Brexit dividend for individuals and businesses across the UK" that the culture secretary is seemingly so keen on obtaining.

  Of course, these kind of nuances tend to get forgotten by those who think they can secure better trade deals by spending £200M on a boat [1].

  [0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jun/28/eu-rules-...

  [1] https://www.ft.com/content/c77b7aa1-cebc-47c6-a04a-d21eef2d1...

• by agilob on 8/26/21, 11:58 AM

  >Culture secretary says move could lead to an end to irritating cookie popups and consent requests online

  No it won't. Unless you ban EU citizens visiting your website and your website doesn't make business with other businesses in EU.

  >Britain will attempt to move away from European data protection regulations as it overhauls its privacy rules after Brexit, the government has announced.

  Other countries like Canada implemented GDPR directive. EU required this from Canada, Japan and other countries to make some custom/tariff -free deals. Looks like UK wants to break away from dealing with EU at all?

• by KaiserPro on 8/26/21, 1:06 PM

  I didn't think the cookie law is actually an intrinsic part of GDPR. But I could be wrong. I know you are supposed to make it clear that you are collecting data, and allow opt out.

  So, I can see the political point in "setting fire to the cookie law" whilst basically being GDPR in all but name.

  however, given the power of the present government to cock things up, I suspect they are going to make some stupid changes that threaten our equivalence with the EU. The EU will happily remove it, thus making it harder to trade in the EU.

  I notice some murmuring about science. I suspect that means they'll try and make it simpler to wholesale sell off the fetid datamine that is NHS medical history. However if we are lucky, they'll also undermine the concept of informed consent for anything to do with research/data, which will be fun.

• by that_guy_iain on 8/26/21, 11:54 AM

  And now lots of companies who are hosted in the UK are going to have to move out of the UK to stay in compliance with GDPR.

  I actually choose my newsletter service based on the fact they were in the UK and therefore compliant with GDPR due to the fact I seen Mailchimp wasn't.

• by selfhoster11 on 8/26/21, 11:44 AM

  Uh oh. I was worried they might start messing with GDPR. While GDPR can get complicated to comply with, it is a measure that I wholeheartedly support as a user who values their personal data.

• by FridayoLeary on 8/26/21, 2:03 PM

  The GDPR should specify a standard cookie banner that must be used, some of them are beyond a joke. Google (for shame) has the most horrible, obnoxious dark-pattern banner, that they have obviously worked on to make as unfriendly as possible, while looking as benign as possible. I've never once in my life bothered reading the walls of script and check-boxes before clicking the most convenient button i can find.

• by s1k3s on 8/26/21, 3:24 PM

  Good for them, I wish EU did it too. GDPR is such a failure.

  Edit: Why is this downvoted? What exactly did GDPR accomplish except for making our web experience a mess, both for businesses and users.

• by CodeGlitch on 8/26/21, 12:15 PM

  I agree with removing the cookie requests. 99% of people just click the big green "AGREE ALL" button because they're too busy to go on a box-ticking exercise. I hope other aspects of GDPR remain in place though, and have to agree that we should be cherry picking the rules that make sense to UK businesses and users.

• by Nextgrid on 8/26/21, 1:16 PM

  The reason the GDPR failed and was more an annoyance than a solution is because of its lack of enforcement and the total incompetence of the ICO.

  All the annoyances that seem caused by the GDPR such as the annoying and misleading consent popups are explicitly forbidden by the GDPR and do not count as compliance.

  If the ICO was doing their job and was using the powers the regulation is granting it (such as the fines everyone was fear-mongering about) it would've quickly forced those websites to comply and stop the annoyances.

• by f32jhnjk33jj on 8/26/21, 3:40 PM

  Cookie popups is another reason to hate the EU. The block is called a bureaucratic monster for a reason.