Some hard facts for those who are bored rigid by Brexit and want some quick insights into what’s coming over the hill for Christmas and the New Year. Click on the images for more insights into the issues raised.
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Write to your MP to demand a suspension of Brexit in the wake of Corona.
At the moment, as we are still a member state of the EU, we abide legally to the rules of the EU. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is one law that the UK must abide by as a member state if it wishes to conduct business on the world stage. The law also regulates the transfer of personal data in and out of the EU and EEA areas.
In the event of a No Deal Brexit (and potentially any Brexit), the UK will have removed itself from all legal process in the EU, including the GDPR. The UK is perfectly happy for everyone to continue transferring personal data to the EU, because the EU is covered by the GDPR (and possibly because the government doesn’t care whether your data becomes public or not). However, the UK will have become a ‘Third Country’ in the eyes of the EU. We operate under the UK’s Data Protection Act… but also currently abide by GDPR. What has never been tested is whether our Data Protection Act is sufficient or ‘adequate’ on its own to protect personal data (of EU citizens) to the level that the GDPR covers privacy and personal data. The EU must protect the data of its member states.
Thus, this puts every organisation that stores and transfers data, into a legal quandary.
If companies operating in the EU or EU agencies transfer personal information to the UK, and the UK misuses or makes that data public, there is no legal action that can be taken against the UK. The ramifications are wide ranging and complex. Read on.
Organisations thus may choose to stop transferring any personal data to the UK until there is clarification on the legal process.
Whilst we are here, snitch on your MP for breaking international law. Use our snitching tool.
This is the ‘adequacy decision‘. Every ‘third country’ has to go through a review process to determine whether there is an adequate level of protection within the third country’s legal system that will protect the privacy of personal data. The last adequacy decision that I know about took over 1 year. And a recent EU-US privacy shield case fell through.
“If there’s a failure to agree on any data protection arrangements, UK organisations which receive personal data from the EU (and EU organisations transferring data to the UK) will need to ensure they have additional appropriate safeguards in place. For example, Standard Contractual Clauses or Binding Corporate Rules. This poses the risk that UK companies could potentially lose business to other companies across the EU.”
It’s kind of obvious really. We want to be alone, so we are alone.
Other than adequacy decisions, data can be transferred if certain standard contractual clauses (SCCs) are added to contracts to cover the protection of personal data. But these are being tested now (see below with Facebook throwing toys out of pram about pulling out of Europe – and perhaps vital to watch how this progresses …).
Examples of who should be concerned:
A hairdresser in Cheshire has a client database which it uses for bookings and marketing. It stores this database on its office computer. It has never sent any of its client data outside the UK and has no intention of doing so. The hairdresser does not need to consider this section on international transfers.
A hotel in Cornwall takes direct bookings from individuals across the EEA, which includes their names, addresses and other personal information. It receives personal data from those individuals and sends personal data back to them. Neither transfer is restricted under the GDPR nor UK GDPR, as it is made directly with a consumer. The hotel does not need to consider this section on international transfers.
However, if either business uses a cloud IT service which stores and/or processes their data (including personal data) anywhere outside the UK (including in the EEA), it should read this section on international transfers.
Boris Johnson announced that the UK would be pushing forth with world class data sharing … This is a swipe at EU GDPR and regulations. He mentioned very little about whether big data would or wouldn’t suddenly become public data. That’s a bit scary on its own. We know that Johnson and Cummings are planning a massive dig into private data with their proposed Verify Identity scheme … See 2019July 20209 Sep 2020 : National Data Strategyand Pandemic Data Sharing.
This is taken from Computer Weekly article:
1. You signed a petition to revoke Article 50 and remain in EU (data is kept on the e-petitions for 12 months with your contact details).
2. You signed a petition against proroguing Parliament.
Currently Whitehall doesn’t have access to Parliament e-petition systems and Parliament would NOT give Whitehall your personal details.
Once we leave the GDPR system … “it’s technically feasible. The only question is how far any prime minister or their government is willing to push the boundaries of political convention and legality to get access to all that data.” Editor’s note : We know that the Government is willing to break international law so anything is possible.
So, hypothetically, you may receive an email … “You signed a petition to revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU… here’s how Brexit will serve you ….” (or worse).
What does it all mean? Whilst it’s hard to know what will actually happen or what individual organisations will do, here’s what we should be aware of …
DropBox stores your data on German servers.
Zoom recordings could be stored on German servers. Facebook information in Ireland.
It is unclear as to what extent Google Education servers, Spotify etc. are affected.
Oliver Slay has worked in IT for over 20 years (with 8 years at management level). He is a Member of the Institution of Analysts and Programmers (MIAP for 13 yrs) and currently a PhD student in Bioinformatics/Genomics at Sheffield Hallam University. His views may not represent those of these organisations.
Early image of Kent Border Patrols
Useful additional reading
Brexit No Deal Data Protection Guide This contains up-to-date Government advice.. (which may have limited information in a constantly changing and backtracking environment).
“If the EU has not made an adequacy decision in respect of the UK before the end of the transition period, you should act if you want to ensure you can continue to receive personal data from EU/EEA countries in the future. The ICO also provides more detailed guidance on what actions might be necessary.”
Any Person or Business, processing personal data concerning EU persons has to do so according to the EU’s GDPR Law.
GDPR is different to the Data Protection Act (and in my opinion, much stricter; particularly as it covers all data, not just data held on a computer).
“All Data” includes Video Images, Voice recordings, telephone answer messages; as well as the usual web-site registrations, blogs and log-ins.
Leaving the EU does not absolve one of this responsibility, as it falls under the authority of “International Public Common Law”
It therefore does not matter if the EU person is living or visiting here or elsewhere; nor does it matter if they don’t have full EU Citizen’s rights..
It is not permitted to do independent analysis of personal data about EU persons, gathered by any EU based, or other organisation.
Even if one processes personal data (or works on such systems) on behalf of an EU based entity; one has to have a Branch Office inside the EU.
This rules out a lot of business prospects for data processing, campaign management, and marketing organizations; and completely eliminates the independent free-lancer from the data market (or knowledge industry as it is also known).
The independent free-lancer or invisible service provider makes up a sizeable part of our trade with the EU. – If there are about 3 Million going each way, and earning say €66,666 p.a. each – that’s a €200,000,000,000 trade (only a proportion of which work in remote data, the rest are dependent on Freedom of Movement, or the Right to Establishment in order to ply their trade).
In case of doubt, here are some real headlines from the Daily Mail for comparison purposes:
And, just in case you were sleeping, Brexit Reich negotiator David Frost has conceded that Britain will not be able to brand car parts made in other countries as being British to evade taxation and tariffs. It’s kind of obvious really. Just why have we been told lies for so long?
Write to your MP. Demand a suspension of Brexit in the wake of Corona.
In this update we look at the latest facts about the economics of Brexit. The popular view is that COVID is the great destroyer of the economy. Think again and read on. The report by LSE shows that Brexit offers a much greater and more sustained shock to our economy than COVID. It also compares No Deal and what might be expected as a Brexit deal and finds no great differences in terms of the long term damage.
In the wake of the 2019 General Election result, there appears to have been a great deal of conciliation and accommodation by Remainers, in terms of the acceptance of some form of Brexit and accepting the illusion that an 80 seat majority is invincible. Yet, as the figures demonstrate, all forms of Brexit are toxic, in terms of their long term and sustainable damage to the United Kingdom. If you feel worn down by 4 years of Brexit boredom, I, above many understand this, having fought full time for several years on this topic. It does not alter the hard fact that Brexit is a shitstorm that we may still avoid, if political will is there or can be created.
The difference between a Brexit Deal and No Deal is really the difference between a slow painful death and a sudden death.
Read up on why Rejoining may be a unicorn in the long term at Fool Britannia.
Write to your MP using these facts to help you compose your letter.
Boiling Frog Blues
If you still feel that Corona is more significant than Brexit you may well be experiencing what psychologists call recency bias. This is the reason why we think that air disasters are a regular occurrence after a significant airplane crash occurs.
Speaking analytically, Corona is merely a crisis, whereas Brexit is a disaster in slow motion. We tend to confuse the two because what is called the boiled frog syndrome. The LSE report shows clearly that Brexit offers a much greater existential risk to Britain. The question remains:
How quickly and how badly to you want to die?
Brexona – Combined effect
An accountant will teach you about the concept of avoidable costs. We must endure Corona as a natural phenomenon. We don’t have to add Brexit to Corona. Combination of 11% GDP loss from Corona and a 5-8% loss from Brexit will be catastrophic. In case of doubt it only took a 3.5% GDP loss to create the 2008 Crash.
“Corona Crisis + Brexit Disaster = Britastrophe”
Ground Control to Boris J
Brexit has already cost us more than The International Space Station (ISS). Brexit is set to cost £200 BILLION by the end of 2020. An ISS costs a mere £115 billion. In case the figures are causing you to be “lost in space”, that means £3030 from EVERY PERSON’S TAXES to be taken from you at some point in the future. And you get a blue passport and a hard border in Kent. Is it worth it?
Write to your MP. Ask them to pull back from the brink of a Britastrophe before it’s too late.
I’m really sick of Brexit. I’m even more sick of Remainers! Well, not all of them of course. Just the ones that waste their and my time telling me we cannot stop Brexit or that we must have a Brexit deal, even if it is shit. My angst extends to some of the key culture carriers of Remain, such as Femi Oluwole, Mike Galsworthy, People’s Vote rebadged and the self-appointed Byline Times leaders, who are merely gold-plating the reasons why we lost three elections and behave like an outreach group of the Labour Party rather than an apolitical coalition devoted to saving the UK from itself.
However, we are all on the same train in one respect, but these people have satisficed themselves with a longer term unicorn of some vague renaissance of a United Kingdom in a reformed EU at some point between 2024 and 2029. This MAY happen, but the probability is low, especially if we get a Brexit deal, as Brexit will be settled for a generation, with no-one wishing to re-open the toxic issue.
See also our article that explains why rejoining is probably a unicorn at Fool Britannia
There is a short-term imperative that these people are not addressing. That of Suspending Brexit altogether. I was gutted to listen to Femi “drinking the Johnson Kool Aid” last week, laying out options for future resistance but not listing the goal of suspending Brexit as one of them. Sadly, 500 Remainers listened to this and because we are largely a law abiding lot, most of them probably believed it. Here I set out the rationale as to why Suspending Brexit in the next 2-3 months remains a viable strategy.
Ball of Confusion OCT – DEC 2020
We can foresee a veritable shitshow in the next few months, an Autumn of Discontent. Here’s just a few of the things coming over the hill in terms of psycho-socio-economic and political factors:
Will Johnson do another U-Turn on Brexit? It’s possible if we act upon moderate MPs and embolden the opposition to grow backbones. He is possibly one of the few people who could do this AND get away with it.
I broke the law
When Remainers tell me that we passed a law to get Brexit done, they seem to forget that our Government break the law on a daily basis. They have just withdrawn the withdrawal agreement, the very law that would “Get Brexit Done”. And just recall all the other laws they have broken of late:
No Deal was ruled illegal. We are still pursing it.
Gina Miller won a case in the Supreme Court. It was ignored.
The Government have just voted down the findings from the Grenfell inquiry in a shameful reversal of their promise – in effect they are saying “Burn, Baby, Burn”.
We have an alleged rapist in the House of Commons, yet nothing has been done about it.
Breaking international law is the most recent example of the plain fact that politicians consider themselves above the law.
Since our Government break the law and do U-Turns on a daily basis, they can also suspend Brexit or do a U-Turn on it. There are plenty of good “excuses”, with COVID at the top of the charts.
How would it be done?
In simple terms, all that is needed is a phone call from Boris Johnson to Ursula Von Der Leyen. The EU have always left the door ajar for this. This opportunity will not prevail forever, but it is still possible at this time via whatever excuse Johnson can create and whatever mechanism the legal profession can manufacture.
Of course the phone call is not enough. But lawyers would make millions providing the “legal theatre” necessary to “christen” the decision by writing hundreds of documents to validate the decision and make it look difficult. More work for the legal profession.
Paradoxically the removal of a Brexit deal from the mix of negotiations would actually help create the chasm between No Deal + Corona i.e. a Britastrophe:
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