Information Commissioner’s Office: Call for Evidence and Consultation
The ICO has recently launched a call for evidence and consultation on the following areas, which we believe are relevant to Members.
- Call for Evidence: Employment Practices Guidance
- Consultation: How organisations can continue to protect people’s personal data when it’s transferred outside of the UK.
These are discussed in more detail below.
1. Call for Evidence: Employment Practices Guidance:
The Information Commissioner is calling for views on data protection and employment practices to help shape the review of the current guidance. The call for evidence is open until 21 October 2021;
Members may be aware that the ICO has detailed employment practices guidance, including the employment practices code, supplementary guidance and the quick guide. These are now considered outdated as much has changed since they were published, both in terms of data protection law and the way everyone works.
The ICO plan to replace the existing guidance with new, more user-friendly online resources that are topic-specific. The aim is to ensure that the new guidance addresses the changes in data protection law, reflects the changes in the way employers use technology and interact with staff and meets the needs of the people who use the guidance.
The Commissioner is seeking input from relevant stakeholders, including employers and will use the responses to inform their review resource. The Guidance is intended to cover ‘workers’ as well as employees, contractors, volunteers, gig and platform workers.
There are several ways to participate in the call for evidence. You can either complete the online survey or fill in the Word document which has the same information. Alternatively, if you wish to pass on your feedback/views to us we can feed them into the survey on your behalf.
The online survey is live already and can be accessed by following this link: Snap Surveys
One of the ICO Commissioners has produced a blog further explaining the reasoning behind this review: Data Protection & Employment Practices
2.Consultation: How organisations can continue to protect people’s personal data when it’s transferred outside of the UK.
On 11 August 2021, the ICO has launched an eight-week consultation on its draft international data transfer agreement (IDTA) guidance.
An IDTA is a contract that organisations can use when transferring data to countries not covered by adequacy decisions. This will replace current standard contractual clauses (SCCs) to take into account the binding judgment of the European Court of Justice in a case commonly known as ‘Schrems II’.
The IDTA will ensure there are the safeguards of high standards of data protection and support the UK’s digital economy by enabling the global flow of information.
It is recognised that international transfers can be complex and therefore the ICO has stated that they have designed the new guidance to be accessible and offer support to all organisations.
For more information about the IDTA guidance, go to: Consultation on Data
The consultation will remain open until 5pm on 7 October 2021. The ICO will use the responses to develop the final documents.
To respond to this consultation Members can download and complete the consultation paper https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/ico-and-stakeholder-consultations/ico-consultation-on-data-transferred-outside-of-the-uk/ and email to IDTA.consultation@ico.org.uk
Alternatively, Members can email us any views they have any, and we will input them into the Consultation.