Culture Secretary pledges to axe EU’s data law and replace it with ‘common sense’ British system

• Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan has vowed to scrap GDPR data protection
• She announced plans for a new British system focused on ‘common sense’
• At Tory Party Conference, Donelan railed against red tape for small businesses

The Culture Secretary was cheered by party members as she pledged to scrap GDPR data protection rules as part of a bonfire of EU red tape. 

Michelle Donelan vowed to bring in a new British system focused on ‘common sense’ which protects privacy while preventing losses from cyber attacks and data breaches. 

In her conference speech, she railed against the red tape faced by small businesses, tradesmen and even churches and declared they would no longer be ‘shackled’. 

The EU’s data law ‘ties them in knots with clunky bureaucracy’, said Miss Donelan. ‘It is time we seize this post-Brexit opportunity fully and unleash the full growth potential of British business.’ 

Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan speaking at the Conservative Party conference yesterday at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham

GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation, came into force in 2018 but is unpopular. 

The rules mean constant popups asking web users about their data plus complex rules for businesses. 

Last year ministers called on the Information Commissioner’s Office to address concerns that data protection was stifling innovation.

A senior retail source said: ‘It will make life a lot easier for business starting up, but will whatever replaces actually make things better? That’s the question.’

The move, which includes the pledge to make the UK ‘a bridge across the Atlantic’, is likely to alarm privacy experts, who fought for years for greater transparency about how families’ data is used and stored.

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