5 ms·

Except not quite: while the UK will have laws that effectively mirror the GDPR, the crucial difference is that it's now a UK law, not a European law, and there

Except not quite: while the UK will have laws that effectively mirror the GDPR, the crucial difference is that it's now a UK law, not a European law, and there is no EU enforcement of that UK law. UK citizens also won't be able to appeal all the way up the EU courts: it stops at the UK supreme court. And most importantly: now that the UK is out of the EU, it is a tiny, barely relevant factor in multinational corporate online practice. Any business that gets told by the UK to follow their GDPR can quite comfortably go "lol, no" and barely affect their bottom line, as opposed to having the entire EU block go "obey our GDPR or we won't let you do business in any of these 27 nations, a large portion of which make up a substantial cut of your global revenue". The biggest players won't, of course, but smaller companies?

nihonde 7y ago
If the compelling threat was not being able to do business in the EU, then that business was and remains subject to GDPR anyway.
Nextgrid 7y ago
Since the laws are identical wouldn’t it still mean that any business complying with the GDPR (in order to do business in the EU) would already comply with the UK’s version of it, and vice versa? How can you comply with one but not another given they are exact copies of each other?
- celticninja 7y ago
  You can collect and sell UK user data, so they don't need to change anything, they can just sell UK user data without worrying about gdpr
  - matthewheath 7y ago
    Are you able to cite your source for this? The UK transposed GDPR into its domestic legislation so this shouldn't be possible at the moment.
    - marcus_holmes 7y ago
      It wasn't possible even before GDPR - the UK has had strong data protection laws since the mid-90's
- matthewheath 7y ago
  For now, yes. In the future, that may not be the case if the UK decides to diverge from the GDPR.
mattmanser 7y ago
The 3rd biggest online market is barely a blip? And probably the 2nd biggest for the US because of the shared language. Poorly informed comments like this pop up a lot, they don't understand the reality of just how big the UK economy is compared to the vast majority of coutnries that make up the EU. The UK was 20% of the EU's GDP, 1/5th of the total GDP out of 27 countries.
- makomk 7y ago
  They probably pop up a lot because they're the result of people being actively misinformed. The UK press has been pushing this narrative about the UK being a tiny, irrelevant backwater of the EU hard ever since the referendum was announced. It's certainly not the only way they've lead people astray either.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    It’s interesting how much the press of the US and U.K. push the narrative that the UK, respectively, are terrible.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- ben_w 7y ago
  The EU+UK combined is about the same size as the USA. No EU country alone is a world player any more, that’s basically the entire reason everyone got together to negotiate trade issues as a block. I agree with you that the language barrier is stop going to be at least somewhat important.
  - squiggleblaz 7y ago
    I guess it depends on your definition of a "world player". By GDP, it goes something like US, EU, China, Japan, India, UK, Brazil, Canada, Russia, South Korea, Australia. There's a fairly large gap (more than double) between Japan and China. Obviously exact orders will depend on the estimate and how fair it is to use 2019 figures and then subtract the UK from them. But however you slice it, the UK is not pocket change. Maybe smaller companies can ignore all but the largest three, but I doubt it. It's more likely that the UK will prefer a more liberal market, and for that reason their laws will be a little ignored - they won't enforce them and will forever be planning their repeal even if they never quite get there.
alasdair_ 7y ago
> And most importantly: now that the UK is out of the EU, it is a tiny, barely relevant factor in multinational corporate online practice. California emissions standards for automobiles dictate how cars are made for the entire USA. The UK has almost double the population of California and is a huge online market.

nihonde 7y ago

If the compelling threat was not being able to do business in the EU, then that business was and remains subject to GDPR anyway.

Nextgrid 7y ago

Since the laws are identical wouldn’t it still mean that any business complying with the GDPR (in order to do business in the EU) would already comply with the UK’s version of it, and vice versa? How can you comply with one but not another given they are exact copies of each other?

celticninja 7y ago
You can collect and sell UK user data, so they don't need to change anything, they can just sell UK user data without worrying about gdpr
- matthewheath 7y ago
  Are you able to cite your source for this? The UK transposed GDPR into its domestic legislation so this shouldn't be possible at the moment.
  - marcus_holmes 7y ago
    It wasn't possible even before GDPR - the UK has had strong data protection laws since the mid-90's
matthewheath 7y ago
For now, yes. In the future, that may not be the case if the UK decides to diverge from the GDPR.

mattmanser 7y ago

The 3rd biggest online market is barely a blip? And probably the 2nd biggest for the US because of the shared language. Poorly informed comments like this pop up a lot, they don't understand the reality of just how big the UK economy is compared to the vast majority of coutnries that make up the EU. The UK was 20% of the EU's GDP, 1/5th of the total GDP out of 27 countries.

makomk 7y ago
They probably pop up a lot because they're the result of people being actively misinformed. The UK press has been pushing this narrative about the UK being a tiny, irrelevant backwater of the EU hard ever since the referendum was announced. It's certainly not the only way they've lead people astray either.
- rayiner 7y ago
  It’s interesting how much the press of the US and U.K. push the narrative that the UK, respectively, are terrible.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
ben_w 7y ago
The EU+UK combined is about the same size as the USA. No EU country alone is a world player any more, that’s basically the entire reason everyone got together to negotiate trade issues as a block. I agree with you that the language barrier is stop going to be at least somewhat important.
- squiggleblaz 7y ago
  I guess it depends on your definition of a "world player". By GDP, it goes something like US, EU, China, Japan, India, UK, Brazil, Canada, Russia, South Korea, Australia. There's a fairly large gap (more than double) between Japan and China. Obviously exact orders will depend on the estimate and how fair it is to use 2019 figures and then subtract the UK from them. But however you slice it, the UK is not pocket change. Maybe smaller companies can ignore all but the largest three, but I doubt it. It's more likely that the UK will prefer a more liberal market, and for that reason their laws will be a little ignored - they won't enforce them and will forever be planning their repeal even if they never quite get there.

alasdair_ 7y ago

> And most importantly: now that the UK is out of the EU, it is a tiny, barely relevant factor in multinational corporate online practice. California emissions standards for automobiles dictate how cars are made for the entire USA. The UK has almost double the population of California and is a huge online market.