Jumping the gun on EU data protection

Europe's data protection regime is now nearly 20 years old, predating the cloud, social media and smartphones. When the current law was passed, I was just getting the hang of surfing the web with Netscape Navigator and was about to be granted my very own email address at university, accessed through Pine. Suffice to say that the current regime is looking more than a little out of date.

It is fairly well known that changes are afoot to the existing Data Protection Directive and the UK's associated Act. The changes currently being proposed would affect all businesses, great and small, and we are frequently asked what they should be doing to prepare. However, it will be some time before an agreement is made, and then even longer until the new regulations are implemented into UK law.