The Government of British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is set to ditch data-protection, a non-governmental rights group revealed.
ImpACT International for Human Rights Policies revealed in a new report that the UK government risks creating a wild west where peoples’ personal information will be exploited for profit and political purposes.
ImpACT International for Human Rights Policies, the London-based think tank expose, with growing apprehension, the UK Government’s consultation on data, innocuously labelled ‘Data: a new direction’.
The Government recognising that your data is ‘one of the most important resources in the world’ are planning to move away from the mandated consent model of collection to one where information can be even more easily accessed, processed, and sold, the group added.
The aim seems to be to make life easier for data processors and controllers, in some cases allowing Artificial Intelligence to be the sole arbiter, rather than protecting peoples professional and personal freedom. Under this new system the computer says no to privacy and yes to profiling.
Present rights
The Data Protection Act 2018 has protected people from harassment and defended workers from having to divulge personal and medical information to their employer. It has limited some efforts to obtain and exploit personal information and placed the principle of consent at the core of how citizens information is managed and when and how it can be used.
Indeed, Article 5 of the UK’ GDPR, ensures that data is only “collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes” and is “adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary.” Abandonment of that firm principle will not only endanger data sharing in the European Economic Area but also allow the free for all that many privacy campaigners fear.
