The updated reform legislation provides welcome guidance and clarifications on aspects such as legitimate interests and accountability, without substantially shifting the approach proposed under the existing reform bill.

By Gail E. Crawford, Fiona M. Maclean, Timothy Neo, Irina Vasile, and Amy Smyth

On 8 March 2023, the UK government introduced the second draft of its UK data protection reform legislation, the Data Protection and Digital Information (No.2) Bill (the No. 2 Bill). The No. 2 Bill supersedes the original Data Protection and Digital Information Bill (the Original Bill), which the government first introduced last summer, following the consultation “Data: a new direction” (the Consultation). (For more information on the Consultation, see this Latham blog post; for more details on the proposed changes in the first version of the Bill, see this Latham overview and deep dive.)

The No. 2 Bill details how the government proposes to reform the current UK data protection regime, which consists primarily of the UK Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018), the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR).