Ever since Brexit (as well as during the campaign), we’ve been promised regulatory divergence from the EU. Yesterday evening we got a glimpse of what this could look like, as the Government announced plans for a new data regime.

Yesterday’s announcement was trailed in a recent Telegraph interview with Oliver Dowden MP, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The plans aim to iron out some of the deficiencies that the government sees with GDPR. But while the Telegraph article focused on us being subjected to fewer cookie popups – after all, that’s what your average man/woman on their smartphone cares about – the most interesting idea could be around removing barriers to responsible data use.

An example of what's possible can bee seen from researchers from Moorfields Eye Hospital and the University College London Institute of Ophthalmology. They made a breakthrough in patient care using AI, training machine learning technology on thousands of historic de-personalised eye scans to identify signs of eye disease and recommend how patients should be referred for care. The expectation is that identifying and clarifying lawful grounds for research processes would lead to more innovations like this and AI outperforming doctors’ diagnosis of breast cancer.

There will be concerns about privacy. But people seem to care about data privacy less than you might think. One study found that “86% of respondents express no willingness to pay for additional privacy when interacting with Google. Among the remaining 14%, the average expressed willingness to pay is low.”

Nevertheless, as the plans acknowledge, there are differences in how large tech firms and small hairdressing businesses should be regulated, which is why they are planning to tweak GDPR rules to move away from the “one-size-fits-all” approach. (Hence the focus on fewer cookie popups.)

The plans also consider bias in algorithmic systems. This is clearly a legitimate concern, but it’s also an opportunity. As Caleb Watney writes on that fallibility of humans: “We judge people based on how traditionally African American their facial features look, we penalize overweight defendants, we let unrelated factors like football games affect our decision making, and more fundamentally, we can’t systematically update our priors in light of new evidence. All this means that we can gain a lot by partnering with AI, which can offset some of our flaws.” (Read Sam Dumitriu’s article from 2019 for a thoughtful consideration of the evidence.)

We’ll respond to the consultation around these plans, so if you want to feed into our response, send over your thoughts to Sam via email.

Queen’s club
Everyone wants to be appreciated. From the twisted olive branches for victors in the Olympic Games, to chalices in the Middle Ages, through to the numerous awards of the modern world, being recognised incentivises us. That’s why we called for a new order of chivalry so that entrepreneurs and innovators are properly appreciated.

And while we think they fall short of our proposal, entrepreneurs may want to consider applying now for the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise. You can apply in the categories of innovation, international trade, sustainable development or promoting opportunity through social mobility.

Winners will be: invited to a Royal reception; presented with the award at your company by a Lord-Lieutenant; able to fly The Queen’s Awards flag at your main office, and use the emblem on your marketing materials; and be given an official certificate and a commemorative crystal trophy.

The deadline for entries is midday on 22nd September 2021. Find out more here.