The incoming UK-Japan trade agreement poses new threats to our privacy rights by creating a “gateway” for your data to be transferred with low protections to other countries.
Under new clauses, when your data is transferred to Japan it can be “laundered” and sent to countries with far weaker or voluntary data protection standards like the US, putting your personal data in the hands of unaccountable foreign corporations.
Your privacy is not a bargaining chip. Unaccountable corporations must not gain control over our digital rights and liberties.
Worse still, none of this has been explained to Parliament. The vital provision allowing data transfers to the US was hidden as a footnote, rather than openly discussed in a democratic forum.
In 2020, hundreds of ORG activists from across the UK called on MPs to “freeze” the harmful clauses that endanger privacy, which can be done without affecting other sections of the treaty — the same occurred with the IP chapters of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).