UK treads fine line with GDPR changes

The UK government is at loggerheads with the European Union over the Northern Ireland protocol, but today it may have averted a fresh post-Brexit clash in proposed legislation on data protection.

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has become something of a gold standard since its introduction four years ago, but the UK has been looking to diverge from it since leaving Europe, saying it wants to cut red tape and make Britain a more attractive place for companies and emerging technologies.

But a radical divergence from GDPR could prompt the EU to withdraw the adequacy ruling that allows data exchange with the UK. Services dominate the British economy and data-driven trade generated nearly three quarters of total service exports and an estimated £234bn for the economy in 2019.

So the reaction to the government’s response today to consultations on its Data Reform Bill has been one of relief.

The Department for Digital says the bill will save businesses around £1bn by removing “GDPR’s prescriptive requirements” about the way companies have to manage data risks. However, the “same high data protection standards will remain but organisations will have more flexibility to determine how they meet these standards”.

“This is good news for data flows between the EU and the UK, as these more modest reforms mean the EU Commission is less likely to revoke the UK’s adequacy finding,” said Linklaters tech lawyer Peter Church.

The new bill also aims to modernise the Information Commissioner’s Office, with the data regulator being given a chair, chief executive and board. More controversially, Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations will be changed so users don’t have to opt in on allowing cookies on websites they visit.

While many may welcome the disappearance of these constant pop-ups when visiting websites, privacy advocates are up in arms about the new opt-out model. “These irresponsible proposals will endanger consumers and make it easy for businesses to spy on you, build machines to judge you and wait for you to work it out,” said Mariano delli Santi, data protection campaigner at Open Rights Group.

The Internet of (Five) Things

1. Musk outlines Twitter ambitions to staff
Elon Musk warned Twitter staffers its business needed to “get healthy” and undergo a “rationalisation of headcount and expenses” as he addressed the social media platform’s employees directly for the first time since launching his $44bn takeover bid. Speaking to its 8,000-strong workforce via a smartphone video, Musk said he wanted Twitter to build up a user base of at least 1bn people globally, up from 229mn monetisable daily active users.

2. TikTok’s shopping model struggles
The short video service’s influencers in the UK are dropping out of TikTok’s ecommerce programme, complaining of poor pay, long hours and promoting cheap products, in the latest sign that its “livestream shopping” model is struggling to take off worldwide.

3. BookToks and the art of reading
BookToks — typically a very short video on TikTok in which people share their favourite reads — have clocked up 56bn views over the past four years. John Gapper says print is still superior for deep reading.

4. Deutsche Bank installs monitoring app on staff phones
The German bank has begun installing an app on bankers’ phones to track all their communications with clients amid regulatory probes into inappropriate messaging that have rattled the industry. Elsewhere, Alphaville’s Bryce Elder asks how we should police trader bots.

5. How Covid changed the way we commute
In the year to March 2021, e-bike sales were 70 per cent above where they were a year earlier and have remained elevated, according to this look at e-transport in our Sustainable Mobility special report. This week’s #techAsia newsletter looks at the massive e-motorbike industry emerging in Indonesia.

Tech tools — a likeable Leica

You have to admire the Leica M11’s refusal to bend to modern tastes, writes Jamie Waters. There’s no autofocus or video and, for those who haven’t used a Leica before, its range-finding system — a rare throwback among today’s cameras — takes some getting used to.

Yet these nostalgic elements on this £7,500 model are jazzed up with a state-of-the-art 60MP sensor to rival the best out there: a remarkably powerful engine for such a compact camera. Not everyone will need images quite so sharp but, handily, you can swap between 60MP, 36MP and 18MP (as well as between mechanical or silent electronic shutters). It excels in poorly lit settings and its images have that magical textured quality for which Leica is famous.

It’s one of five new cameras reviewed by Jamie for HTSI.