DPDI Bill was dropped – but will it return?

The Data Protection and Digital Information Bill (DPDI) did not make it to the “wash up” period before the dissolution of Parliament when a few Bills were rushed through. For now, the current regime remains which consists of the the UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003. This is good news for the EU’s adequacy assessment of the UK, due in summer 2025.

The Labour party’s election manifesto was silent on data protection but promised to create a new Regulatory Innovation Office, bringing together existing functions across government. Peter Kyle, Labour MP, said at the London Tech Week in June that Labour “would keep the regulatory framework the Government has set out on AI, wanting not to undermine and cause uncertainty for businesses, but that steps would be taken to strengthen the AI Safety Institute with statutory powers to gain access to data and models from frontier AI firms.”

It remains to be seen whether an AI Bill will emerge. Read about the Trade Union Congress’s proposals on AI concerns in the employment field.

There are challenges that data protection teams may come across in relation to AI. Organisations will need to decide on their governance framework and whether to have the Data Protection Officer also as their AI officer.

The ICO has now issued its final decision on Snap’s AI chatbot, which does not include enforcement action. In the meantime, the ICO warns organisations that they must not ignore data protection risks in this area. Also in the pipeline is the ICO’s opinion on pay or consent. Some stakeholders in the European Economic Area are calling for competition authorities’ involvement to determine what would be an acceptable level of fee for a service, so it will be interesting to see what emerges from the ICO. Of course, in the UK there is already well-established cooperation between these authorities.

Laura Linkomies
Editor, Privacy Laws & Business

July 2024