by Angela Guess
Chris Middleton recently summarized the impact that Brexit could have on data for citizens of the United Kingdom. Writing in Diginomica, he opines, “As the Brexit aftershock rolls on, many commentators have questioned the impact of the UK leaving the European Union (EU) on matters of data protection, data transfer and data sovereignty. Opponents of the EU’s bureaucratic culture tend to see regulations as an impediment to trade, rather than as trade enablers on mutually agreed terms, offering consumer, business, and data protections. At best, Brexit leaves the UK’s position on data sovereignty and governance uncertain, and at worst a legislative mess that may take years, even decades, to resolve. The latter is a real possibility: the Leave campaign admits to having no post-Brexit plan. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has handed his successor the poisoned chalice of implementing Article 50 to formally leave the union. No one knows what happens next.”
Middleton goes on, “The British government may decide to change or repeal any UK laws and regulations that originated in Brussels; indeed, that’s the whole point for Leave campaigners. Whether it will do so is another matter. But why is that important? It’s partly to do with technology. The cloud isn’t some egalitarian fog of code, floating in the ether and uniting all humanity in a hippy dream world. People are waking up and recognising the sovereign reality: that ‘the cloud’ is about data centers, built on land under national laws, not castles in the air. This is partly because of incoming European data regulations and the ongoing war of words between the EU and the US over data governance.”
Photo credit: Flickr/ miraconjei