The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) published new draft guidance(1) on the provisions in the UK General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018 (collectively, the UK GDPR) relating to processing personal data for research purposes.

The guidance provides clarity to health and life sciences companies and will be broadly welcomed in an area that is often difficult to navigate, not least because the law is contained in various provisions and there has been varying guidance on how to interpret the provisions. The ICO consultation on the guidance closed on 22 April 2022.

The ICO is also consulting now on its draft guidance(2) concerning anonymisation, pseudonymisation and privacy-enhancing technologies. This consultation will close on 16 September 2022.