King's Speech 2023 - Data Protection and Digital Information Bill

"My Ministers will introduce new legal frameworks to ... encourage innovation in technologies such as machine learning.”

• Better data access and use is at the heart of the Government’s mission to grow the economy, improve the lives of everyone in the UK, and make us the most innovative society in the world through science and technology.

• The Data Protection and Digital Information Bill maximises post-Brexit freedoms to boost the economy and unleash innovation while also protecting people from harm by building on the UK’s already high standards. The Bill has been co-designed with industry, for industry, in order to maximise the economic benefits.

• The Bill will create an innovative and flexible data protection regime which maintains the UK’s high standards of data protection and ensures we can unlock

£2.2 billion of net present benefits to businesses and £2.5 billion to the public sector over 10 years, in the form of compliance cost savings, increased productivity and savings to law enforcement and intelligence service bodies.

• At the same time, we will reduce burdens on businesses and researchers, and enable innovation in science, innovation and technology that advance the health and prosperity of society to the benefit of the British people. And the Bill will directly tackle issues that have plagued the public for too long – including the proliferation of nuisance calls and repetitive ‘cookie pop-ups’.

What does the Bill do?

• The Data Protection and Digital Information Bill seizes our post-Brexit opportunity to create a new UK data rights regime, while taking tangible steps to harness the benefits of secure data use for everyone through innovation and technology.

• The Bill reduces burdens on businesses (especially SMEs), removes unnecessary barriers placed on scientific researchers, boosts the economy by £4.7 billion over 10 years, and enables innovations that advance the strength and prosperity of society. It does this through a combination of:
• • Allowing businesses to protect personal data in more proportionate and practical ways than under the EU’s GDPR, making them more efficient by eliminating unnecessary paperwork and cutting red tape, whilst maintaining high data protection standards.
  • Clarifying and improving rules around using personal data for scientific research, fostering a home for world class research and development.

oEstablishing a framework for secure digital verification services, enabling people and businesses to make the most of new technologies with confidence, facilitating smoother, cheaper online transactions, and enabling individuals to prove things about themselves digitally in a secure and trusted way – if they choose to do so.

• Enabling “Smart Data” schemes across the economy to ensure everyone benefits from lower prices from schemes like Open Fuel, and trusted, innovative services like Open Banking.
• Ensuring the better use of data in delivery of health and adult social care, law enforcement, security, and other government services to increase efficiency and the quality of services for individuals.

• This regime also better protects people by:
• • Strengthening and modernising our world leading regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), by ensuring it has the capabilities and powers to tackle organisations that breach data rules, empowering it to better allocate its resources, and ensuring it is more accountable to Parliament and the public. We are also broadening the ICO’s powers to tackle nuisance calls that have blighted communities – particularly the elderly – for too long.
  • Maintaining high international data protection standards so that businesses can trade freely with global partners like the EU, while ensuring it’s easier to strike new data bridges with trusted international partners such as the US, boosting trade and market access for UK businesses. Reforms will also enable our UK law enforcement agencies to maximise law enforcement cooperation with key international partners.

Territorial extent and application

• The majority of the measures in the Bill will extend and apply to the United Kingdom.

Key facts

• Data is critical for UK businesses. 85 percent of UK businesses handle some form of digital data, and 99 percent of businesses who employ more than 10 people use digitised data.

• In 2022, the UK’s data market, (i.e. the money made from products or services derived from digitised data) was estimated to be larger than that of any EU or EEA country.

• The UK data economy (the data market plus the value data adds to other sectors of the economy) now represents an estimated 6.9 per cent of GDP (as of 2022).

Utilising datainaneffective and safe wayis helpingto level the playing field. This Bill will reduce compliance burdens on businesses and cut red tape, which we estimatewillsavemicroandsmallbusinessesapproximately£90millionayearin compliance costs.

• The reforms in this Bill will also encourage small and micro businesses to use more data more effectively in their decision making, boosting productivity. We estimate micro and small businesses will increase their annual Gross Value Added levels by approximately £14 million a year.

• The UK’s data economy is also crucial to boosting trade. In 2021, data-enabled UK service exports accounted for 85 percent of total service exports and were estimated to be worth £259 billion. The value of data-enabled exports from the UK to the EU alone is estimated at £91 billion.

• Reducing administrative burdens on policing by removing the requirement to record a justification every time personal data is accessed or disclosed could save approximately 1.5 million policing hours. The cost-savings for law enforcement agencies could be in the region of £46.5 million per year.