The United Kingdom is a sovereign country situated off the north- western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom is a unitary parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy, where there is no written constitution. The United Kingdom consists of four countries, i.e. England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
The United Kingdom has the world’s fifth largest economy by nominal gross domestic product (GDP), And tenth largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). The United kingdom became the world’s first industrialized country and was the world’s foremost power during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Today the United Kingdom remains one of the world’s great powers, with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific, technological and political influence internationally.
Brexit & short history
Privacy is a Universal Right. Most countries have Privacy Laws to protect their citizens’ personal Information. On 29th March 2017, the British Government led by Theresa formally notified the EU of the country’s intention to withdraw from its membership, beginning the Brexit process, the withdrawal was originally scheduled on 29th March 2019 but due to deadlocks in the British Parliament it got extended. The UK officially left the EU on the 2nd February 2020 and after the UK’s departure the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law which is an EU Regulation was no longer applicable to the UK.
The privacy law of the UK is named as the “Data Protection Act 2018” prior to this act there was Data Protection Act 1998 and the European Union’s GDPR was governing the subject matter and the same was replaced by the Data Protection Act 2018.
Commencement and Extensions
The Data Protection Act, 2018 came into effect on 25th May 20218 however, it is to be noted that some provisions under this act came into force after 2 months beginning when the act was passed. This act extends to England and Wales, Scotland & Northern Irland, although there are certain specific sections which do not apply to these regions and those sections we shall discuss in our UK series.
Structure of Data Protection Act, 2018
The statute has 215 sections in 7 parts and 20 schedules. The Data Protection Act, 2018 controls how your personal information is used by governments. Under the Data Protection Act, 2018 citizens have the right to find out what information the government and other organizations store about you. These includes the rights to :-
- Be informed about how your data is being used
- Access personal data
- Have incorrect data updated
- Have data erased
- Stop or restrict the processing of your data
- Data portability (allowing you to get and reuse your data for different services)
- Object to how your data is processed in certain circumstances
Picture Credit- https://www.privacypolicies.com/