...she's an idiot. Truly it is said that Dorries is what happens when the ventriloquist dies and the dummy keeps talking.

She may have got one thing right:

This data Bill is one of Brexit’s biggest rewards.

I expect nothing good from this data Bill and even less from anything else Brexit related. On the other hand, perhaps there are big rewards ... for her, her colleagues and certain multinational companies.

big rewards ... for multinational companies

[1]This suggests exactly the opposite and that it's lose/lose for everyone.

Incidentally, am I the only person having every post moderated at present?

[1] https://twitter.com/vmanancourt/status/1565996867732766722

"Nadine Dorries promotes 'Brexit rewards' of proposed UK data protection law"

Our French friends have an apt word for her:

"Elle est un légume."

Sa mère était un hamster et son père sentait les baies de sureau

As I've pointed out before, Nadine Dorries is an anagram of Inane Disorder.

It’s astonishing isn’t it (except not at all astonishing to anyone with half a brain). But all the Tory attempts at reducing red tape through half baked schemes like Brexit have left us awash with the stuff. There’s more paperwork and box ticking than ever.

And all their promises to make us richer have made them richer and the rest of us poorer. They’re an absolute shower, the lot of them, and they’re driving this country into the crapper.

Not so much the party of fiscal probity as the party of anal probity - so bend over because here it comes again.

Nothing good will come of this, and the sooner we can have a government that cares about this country and it’s people the better.

Two downvotes? They're surely the ones still fucking the flagpole and mumbling incoherently about getting Brexit done.

Dorries thinks this will save a billion over the next ten years. How much is being lost *every* *single* *year* because of the mountains of red tape and paperwork due to walking away from the customs union? Plus, I think you'll find a depressing number of businesses worry about if they'll be around in ten weeks, never mind ten years.

Downvotes are to be expected. There are an astonishingly large number of gullible people in the world, whether swallowing the fascist claptrap of the MAGA republicans or greedily swallowing the lies of Farage, Mogg, Johnson and the right wing press (largely but not exclusively controlled by Murdoch) or (and because I’m a woolly centrist) the far left policies of Momentum (who seem to be equally at home to weird conspiracy theories, and are so hell bent on their idea of perfection that they’d rather have a Conservative government in power than work with more moderate parties to oust them)

...How much is being lost...

Hard to quantify but the costs to the taxpayer so far caused by Brexit are greater than the total of all the contributions made to the EU in the 40+ years we were a member.

But we have blue passports.

> But we have blue passports.

Which we could have had if we'd stayed in the EU - burgundy was just the default if no choice was made by the country concerned (Croatia for example has blue passports).

Woosh.....

Yes, I'm well aware of that - my comment was satirical. We were also free to put crowns on beer glasses and almost all of the things Rees Smug claimed as Brexit benefits.

Its not even that GDPR had teeth, it was backed by a large amount of potential consumers to lose, and it was harder to bribe every member of the EU parliament. Google, FB and the ilke will romp all over whatever we do.

Whilst most will agree that we are saddled with mountains of red tape and it has got far worse after Brexit. A change of Government is not going to magically fix anything.

Most of the problems we are landed with no are a direct result of inept and incompetent politicians. The trouble is that whatever political party is in power, it will change the shape of mess but not really improve it.

The arguments for "just rejoining" the EU are difficult as the UK will not exactly be welcomed and certainly not with the same terms that we left.

In the short to medium term what is needed is a pragmatic compromise so that we become part of the Customs Union/Single Market again.

Yes it is not ideal but it is far more likely and certainly far quicker than trying to reverse the total pigs-ear started by Cameron with the ill-fated 2016 referendum that Johnson spectacularly oversold with his "Get Brexit Done" BS.

We have a whole government of Baldrick level thinkers.

"I have a cunning plan - we'll make our own data protection laws, that'll save us pennies and show those EU who's boss!"

"yes, except if we do that, we won't be able to trade with them, which will cost pounds. Go away Baldine"

Baldrick was mostly trying to be helpful. This bunch are only trying to help themselves.

Not Baldrick. This is Yes Minister Series 1, Episode 1: "Getting rid of the difficult bit in the title".

Sir Humphrey lives!

Except Sir Humphrey was competent and knew what the hell he was doing

Except Sir Humphrey was competent and knew what the hell he was doing

Yes, he knew what he was doing that was best for him and the civil service.

This is really just about keeping a seat at the table/trough. The UK is facing some incredibly difficult economic and political challenges and won't really have time for anything else. But, until then it's all about soundbites to keep the members happy.

Winter is coming .

Brexit is Cummings

Unfortunately it's Alan Cummings in Goldeneye

>If the government's legislation ends up too different from the EU's GDPR, it could threaten the "adequacy" ruling which currently allows data sharing between the UK and Europe's trading bloc.

This is, of course, the real issue at the core - if it is deemed no longer adequate, then what will all affected businesses do?

The Gov though, as typical, has provided zero information on that.

Outrage and working up your fans first,

Actually thinking it through and coming up with a strategy left to an afterthought. After all, they'll be gone by then and can blame it on the next person.

It's still beyond me why anyone would want to defend GDPR, apart from the many legal consultants who've made out like bandits whilst pushing corporations and unfortunate SMEs through box ticking exercises.

The case for privacy is clear, but to suggest that GDPR is the pinnacle of privacy regulation is ridiculous. And given that any company operating beyond the shores of the UK already has to comply with a range of payment, taxation, data location and tracking requirements, the idea that dropping some regulations for local operators imposes a huge burden is nonsense.

I've no faith in the current government making great strides here, but it's depressing that 'representative voices' are so keen to denounce any attempt at improving a poor set of regulations with a raft of unintended consequences and costs.

Just like the world needs another text file format?

Sometimes it really is best to put compatibility ahead of perfection, and actually get on with making what you already have the best it can be—evolution instead of revolution.

And yet, we're not all using XML... we could have evolved it...

If something is clunky, expensive to implement, inflexible and poor at representing some classes of problems, it turns out that evolution doesn't serve us very well. And let's remember these things are meant to serve us, not the other way around, and certainly not solely to provide jobs for the boys.

GDPR is far from perfect, but given that it arose in response to the corporate mindset of "fuck privacy", I think we need to cling on to it until something better comes along. And if it is tedious and expensive for a company to implement, well, what does that say about that company's regard for personal data?

(here's a hint - it cost the company I work for very little as they were already aware that certain types of information should be treated as confidential, and this was already a part of one of their ISO something-or-other audits)

Hmm... some revisionist history I think - GDPR was as much an attempt by Europe to stop the Americans dominating online services as it was a serious attempt to "provide privacy". Much of the legislation is about control rather than protection, and much of the protection broken by a complete failure to anticipate how companies would handle consent.

Again, in one breath people say "until something better comes along", before in the very next breath decrying any attempt to try a different path.

It's also somewhat amusing to hear people also claim "this regulation is the only game in town", before stating that much of it was already in ISO standards.

Far too much of this debate is dominated by political motivations rather than any technical analysis.

Yeah, I've taken flak on here for admitting I voted to leave the EU, and the UK making its own laws was part of that.

GDPR has a lot of good things in it, and a few elements that just aren't great. I'd be happy with the UK improving on it, and making data protection laws suit UK needs.

I am however with the majority here. Dorries and her advisers do not appear to understand UK needs, and particularly the needs of the people of the UK. Still, in two years time her party can be voted out of Government and a new Government established that will put proper privacy protections in place, and won't try and control the internet for their own political purposes.

It's democracy, and we still haven't found anything better.

I was with you all the way until you said...

" a new Government established that will put proper privacy protections in place"

at which point I emptied my mouth of coffee and now need a new keyboard.

No matter who you vote for the government always get in! In this case, expecting any government to care about proper privacy protections - especially for individuals - is just a child-like belief in the good of man.

If it helps I was being sardonic. There just aren't the people to vote for (and enough people that would vote for them) that would do these things properly.

At least they can't shift the blame now though. And I am looking forward to getting every single politician banned from every single social media platform by merely reporting what they say on a daily basis, due to the horrific 'safety' bill.

No one is claiming that GDPR is the pinnacle of privacy regulation. But it is the first serious attempt at new privacy regulation in the modern age of big business harvesting our data for financial gain. And the fact that GDPR had to be so big and a cross-EU endeavour is a sad indictment of the power that big business has and the lengths it will go to, to make money from our private data.

As Triggerfish said, GDPR backed by the big EU has a chance against the likes of Google and FB. The UK on its own, less so.

GDPR backed by the big EU has a chance against the likes of Google and FB. The UK on its own, less so.

GDPR backed by the big EU has a snowball's chance in hell against the likes of Google and FB. The UK on its own, much the same.

FTFY.

The quote in the linked article is a thing of beauty:

“It was not that they went online and looked for the means to do so, but because algorithms took them in that direction, whether it was to pro-anorexia sites, suicide chatrooms or self-harm sites,” she told MPs in November. --Nadine Dorries, 2021

On a positive note, at least it's not videogames anymore (this time). Bets are open for what will take the flak when algorithms fall out of favour.

one that is designed not for Brussels, but for the people of the UK,” said Dorries

Wrong: it is designed for those business that do not care about privacy of "the people of the UK".

Corporations are people too. And although Global Megacorp is registered in Narnia in its heart it feels like a British person

British business would do well to keep EU GDPR version if they want to do business with the rest of the EU let alone the rest of the world. So far all I have read is vague arguments of protecting the internet public from predator business. I assume what will happen that trading information on individual persons data and this will happen openly to boot. The EU has done well despite GDPR so whats wrong with Britain or more to the point why does the Tory Party grow a back bone and admit it screwed up.

The cheese nutter won

AKA Cosplay Thatcher

I refer to her when talking to cow-orkers as "la vache folle".

(two birds, one stone)

For the time being.

I'm reminded of an incident in "Yes Prime Minister" with Hacker in one of his usual jams and asking what to do next. It was suggested he invite the Leader of the Opposition's wife to visit No 10. "Why?" "To measure up for curtains." I suppose the difference these days is that measuring up for curtains is something that's going to be avoided for a long time.

@MJI

"AKA Cosplay Thatcher"

I am willing to give her a chance and see what she does. But she is following a bunch of red tories or progressive conservatives. Does she have the spine and will to deal with the current issues or will it be a continuation?

we already know she's fucking useless, like your fucking brexshit bollocks.

And stop the red tory shit, thats starmer, she's just a standard right wing lunatic.

"following a bunch of red tories or progressive conservatives"

Washing hands and making up stories to deflect from the Right's abject failures. As usual.

giving organizations the flexibility to protect personal data in more proportionate ways rather than forcing them to all follow the same processes regardless of their size.

is the bit that most worries me. How can protection of personal data be proportional based on the size of the company? Forget about the overall GDPR implications and data transfer to the EU (bad enough as that is). Is it a case of:

a) Company has 1,000 customers - security is putting that list you printed on the drawer and locking it

b) Company has 10,000 customers - the drawer must be replaced by a safe and the servers have to be unplugged every night and locked away

c) Company has 100,000 customers - the company has to have an anti-virus package installed

d) company has 1,000,000 customers - have every request coming into the company network scrutinised to make sure it is both safe and legitimate. Have security bots on standby to race back down the network and blow up the computer of anyone who tries to access with nefarious intentions, notify the police who will have a special team on standby just to respond to imminent threats of this nature before they cause any harm. Oh, and send a drone to the source location to blow up the source if the police are already busy. Best make the explosive a nuke to make sure they get the miscreants and don't worry about collateral damage. It can't be helped if it keeps the country safe.

If you are a customer that falls into option a or b, don't worry I'm sure the lock will be super duper strong. You're data will still be safe, honest. What do you take me for?

(Can you spot the sarcasm?)

> the new rules would remove the prescriptive requirements of data laws inherited from the EU, giving organizations the flexibility to protect personal data in more proportionate ways rather than forcing them to all follow the same processes regardless of their size

"Flexibility" being the giveaway weasel word here.

Want to bet that in practice that means it'll be used as an excuse to reduce sorely-needed regulation, allow companies to make up their own, inadequate data "protection" schemes to suit themselves rather than those they're "protecting" then get a slap on the wrist when it all blows up and everything leaks?

Almost as if that was the intention all along from those who wanted Brexit so they'd be free to pursue their anti-regulation, laissez-faire, race-to-the-bottom agenda.

Ironically, those who bleat loudest about "red tape" are usually the types who'll be first to exploit its absence- in other words, those who made such red tape necessary to protect us in the first place.

Believing that data can be protected in flexible ways is like believing that you can be half-pregnant. Never mind that introducing new procedures is going to cost companies a fortune, at a time when fortunes to spend on this kind of disruption are in short supply, especially for smaller businesses. Performative change just for the sake of it isn't going to make any ordinary business richer, it's just a green light for the big data slurpers to come in and sell our privacy for bigger profits, dressing up awful schemes as Brexit Benefits.

However, this is probably one of the more minor worries about what we're about to experience. Limits on working time and right to paid holidays are also for the chop if the weekend's newspapers are correct. And food safety standards. That's how the real money is intended to be made. Welcome to your new Sunny British Libertarian Dystopia, none of which anyone but a few tory members will have voted for.

Are “small” companies even trading with the EU now, I thought most of them have given it up as a bad job.

Well my own small consultancy business did most of its trade with the EU and saw bugger-all business after the last remaining contracts were completed in 2018. Now in the process of dissolving it as cost to keep going more than revenues.

" This data Bill is one of Brexit’s biggest rewards "

Really? One of Brexits biggest rewards? Is she serious? If a government minister is claiming this is viewed as a big win from Brexit then it just shows the country has been shafted by the politicians and industry owners who campaigned for it.

>Really? One of Brexits biggest rewards? Is she serious? If a government minister is claiming this is viewed as a big win from Brexit then it just shows the country has been shafted by the politicians and industry owners who campaigned for it.

TBF Wurzel from Spoons was whinging yesterday about Brexit affecting his business. So some of them have shafted themselves...

And if anyone wants help with their heating bills, Spoons offer unlimited coffee/tea so you can stay warm on their dime - but you might be better not actually drinking said hot drinks.