Not everyone aspires to be 'adequate' but today UK businesses can breathe a sigh of relief as the UK is one step closer to the certainty of adequacy.

The European Commission has released its draft decision on whether the UK ensures an essentially equivalent level of protection to the protection guaranteed under the GDPR and the Law Enforcement Directive. The Commission’s decisions conclude that the UK does provide adequate protection and data flowing from the EU to the UK should remain unrestricted.

By publishing its draft decisions the Commission has set in motion the final process of approval required to grant the UK an adequacy decision. The European Commission with consider the opinion of the European Data Protection Board on its draft decision and then request the green light from EU Member States in the comitology procedure. Following approval from EU Member States, the Commission can adopt the UK adequacy decision.

While the UK doesn't yet have a fully adopted adequacy decision the release of the Commission's draft deeming the UK adequate is a relief for UK businesses. UK businesses have been caught in a sand storm of uncertainty as to whether data transfers between the EU and the UK post Brexit would become restricted transfers and therefore require additional transfer mechanisms to legally share data. If the UK is granted an adequacy decision data flows of businesses operating in the UK and the EU can continue uninterrupted as they did prior to Brexit.