UKFast CEO Lawrence Jones has hailed the Government鈥檚 announcement today on the regulation of personal data.
The new Data Protection Bill is set to deliver controls over personal data for individuals and provide confidence in digital businesses trading in personal data.
Jones, the co-founder of Manchester-based data hosting and cloud computing specialist UKFast, said the legislation must be at least equal to levels of protection offered by the EU鈥檚 General Data Protection Legislation (GDPR) which comes into force in May 2018.
鈥淭he opportunity is arising for the UK to establish itself even further as a leading player in data analytics, data centres and global data processing services,鈥� he said.
鈥淲e鈥檙e in an incredibly strong position as we hold the highest privacy standards, but we need to keep that up after we leave the EU.
鈥淚n light of Brexit we have been calling on the UK government to deliver legislation at least equal to the GDPR, so it鈥檚 reassuring to see Matt Hancock announce these measures to implement the EU law today.
鈥溊暇牌凡鑕s are built upon confidence 鈥� confidence in suppliers, in each other and in the economy. Brexit has already caused a huge amount of uncertainty in the economy, so that last thing we need is confidence to fall in our abilities as tech leaders.
鈥淪trong regulations like this help us to build confidence and to trade in the valuable currency of data, but the opportunity will only be realised if we maintain the same standards and inspire the same level of confidence in potential partners across the globe.
鈥淲e need to ensure the right safeguards are in place once we leave the EU in order to maintain and then strengthen our position.
鈥淎t聽UKFast we see this dynamic in action every week. We have been able to win significant amounts of business from our giant American competitors simply because we are held to higher standards on data regulation than the US, and people trust that standard.
鈥淲e will be doing everything we can to lobby the government and guarantee that our new standards are at least equal to the incoming EU regulation.鈥�
UKFast is the largest independently owned data hosting provider in the UK, providing dedicated hosting, colocation and cloud services to more than 5,000 clients.
Recent research found that 69 per cent of business executives in the UK are聽unprepared for GDPR.