Hello everyone and welcome to the next episode of Beyond Brexit. Today we're discussing the

general data protection regulation or GDPR as it's commonly known, which will be implemented in May

of this year and we'll be discussing how Brexit developments may affect the way in which the regulation impacts

business. I'm Sally Cosgrove, your host, taking over from Gaynor Bagley. And I'm delighted

today to be joined by Kevin Burrows, our head of clients and markets, and Stuart Room, our

lead partner for GDPR and data protection.

So welcome Kevin and Stuart.

Hi there, thank you.

So firstly, Stuart, let's start with you.

To give the session and our listeners a bit of context, can you give us a brief overview of GDPR and why it's so important? Yes, of course.

It's the next step in European and UK data protection law.

So we've had data protection law in Europe since 1968, in fact.

That was when the first law was passed.

What the law does is gives consumers more rights over their data and it gives them more power to enforce a law.

So for instance, they'll have a right of data portability and a right to pursue compensation

claims as they want to. It also gives the statutory regulators, in this case the information

commissioner, more enforcement powers so they can take audit steps if they want to and intervene in business.

But the very heart of it is essentially a new code of practice for good data handling by

organisations, businesses, public authorities, etc. And if businesses follow that code of practice,

then they should come to good outcomes with personal data.

So very important to all businesses, no matter what the size or shape of those businesses.

Yeah, absolutely right. There's no real limitation on business size,

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