BRUSSELS — Today, a coalition of 16 tech and business groups representing companies across the European Union, United Kingdom, and United States urged the European Parliament to vote in favour of the EU-UK adequacy decisions in its 20 May plenary vote.

In a letter sent to Members of the European Parliament, the organisations called on the body to recognise the high standard of the UK’s data protection regime, as well as the impressive work done by the European Commission, the European Data Protection Board, and the Member States in striving for a timely adoption of the draft adequacy decisions by the end of May.

"The European Commission’s proposal to grant adequacy to the UK recognises that the UK currently ensures an essentially equivalent level of protection to the one guaranteed under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Law Enforcement Directive (LED)," the organisations wrote in their letter. "The UK has a data protection regime that is and has been deemed essentially equivalent to the EU’s, having itself adopted the GDPR ahead of leaving the EU. Important safeguards including the continued monitoring of the UK’s privacy legislation would be installed by the adequacy decisions.

"The negative consequences of an interruption in data flows would be substantial to businesses in the UK and EU, given the EU remains the UK's main trading partner and EU exports to the UK in 2019 alone amounted to approximately €430 billion," the organisations continued.

The letter was signed by the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), Advertising Information Group (AIG), BritishAmerican Business, Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), Data and Marketing Association, Developers Alliance, Ecommerce Europe, EU travel tech, European Services Forum (ESF), European Publishers Council (EPC), Federation of European Data and Marketing, Make UK, SMEUnited, UK Advertising Association, UK Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The letter points to the need for a new agreement to be in place prior to the expiration of the bridging mechanism in the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement at the end of June; meeting this deadline will allow personal data to continue to flow seamlessly between the EU and the UK.

Read the full text of the letter here.

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