The Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform published, on 16 June 2021, a report containing recommendations to the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, on how the UK can reshape its approach to regulation and seize new opportunities from Brexit. In particular, the Taskforce was formed upon request by Johnson, in order to identify and develop proposals across a range of areas driving innovation, growth, and competitiveness through regulatory reform. Notably, the report calls for a new data protection framework, a UK Framework of Citizen Data Rights, to replace the UK General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) ('GDPR'), describing it as unnecessarily restricting the use of data for worthwhile purposes.

More specifically, the report proposes reform to give stronger rights and powers to consumers and citizens, placing responsibility on the companies using data, and freeing up data for innovation and in the public interest. Furthermore, the report indicates concerns that the UK GDPR needs to be revised for artificial intelligence and growth sectors to enable innovation in the UK. To this end, the report suggests that Article 22 of the UK GDPR should be removed to allow focus on the legitimacy of automated decision-making.

You can read the press release here and the report here.