Brexit Could Bring Data Restrictions to UK Firms

Bloomberg, October 27, 2020

By Natalia Drozdiak

Around the world, companies have been able to expand their global footprints in part by transporting troves of customer data, like payroll information or business contracts, internationally. That's especially important for smaller countries, like the UK, who hope to serve billions of customers outside their borders.

Now, such transfers are increasingly under threat in Europe. In a landmark decision in July, EU judges overturned the primary system to move data from Europe to the US, called Privacy Shield, on concerns that users' information is unsafe from American intelligence services.

Business-to-business companies, on the other hand, could be relatively less affected, some argue. “You can imagine that there’s a difference between industrial data and social media data,” said Aaron Cooper, vice president of global policy at BSA, a trade group that represents companies including Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp. That should inform what extra privacy protections such firms have to incorporate, he said.

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Original Posting: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2020-10-27/the-eu-is-getting-tougher-on-data-portability?sref=qIvhRzNd