The Data Protection and Digital Information Bill (DPDI Bill) was designed to make the UK’s data protection legislative framework more practicable and less burdensome in lower-risk situations while maintaining high data protection standards. It has been in the pipeline for years, in some version or other, and included a series of reforms to the UK's GDPR- most notably, an expansion of what's considered ‘legitimate interest’, more cookie consent exemptions, a change to the role of the Data Protection Officer and arguably less paperwork. We wrote about the proposed changes previously at Data Protection and Digital Information Bill (No.2).
Up until the Prime Minister announced that a General Election would be held on the 4 of July 2024, the DPDI Bill had advanced to the House of Lords Committee Stage and it was very much expected that the Bill would be passed this side of summer, if not by the end of the year. Many data protection practitioners were already taking steps to understand and assess the impact the DPDI Bill would have on operations and plan out matters to be addressed to ensure compliance.
However, following the announcement, the government then entered what is known as a ‘wash up’ period: the time between the election being called and the Parliament being dissolved during which Bills which are not passed, are effective dropped. The ‘wash up’ period concluded on 24 May and the DPDI Bill was not passed.
What does this mean?
Well, it means that the anticipated changes arising from the DPDI Bill will not become law as many expected. While privacy advocates may be celebrating, organisations that had started preparing may be left frustrated albeit perhaps only in the short term. It may be that the DPDI, or some form of it, is picked up by the new Government. We will require to wait and see what that may look like and when that may come into force. For the time being, those that are currently complying with the current legislative framework should continue to do so.
Any plans to amend policies and practices to reflect DPDI requirements should be put on hold for the time being in our view.
