Skip to main content

Data Protection: EU Law

Question for Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

UIN HL14625, tabled on 18 March 2019

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of recent breaches of EU data protection rules by advertising companies on public sector websites; and what steps they are taking to ensure companies adhere to online data compliance legislation in the UK.

Answered on

27 March 2019

We take the protection and privacy of personal data extremely seriously. The Data Protection Act 2018 and the GDPR is in place to ensure that organisations, including the biggest advertising companies, who collect and use data do so lawfully and transparently. Organisations which fail to comply with the new legislation may be investigated by the Information Commissioner’s Office.

The ICO is working with the advertising industry to improve compliance with the law. The ICO recently held a Fact Finding Forum, designed to better understand the key data protection issues around adtech and have published the following blogs in relation to this work. More information can be found here:https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/blog-advancing-the-adtech-debate-from-a-data-protection-perspective/ and here https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/blog-adtech-fact-finding-forum-shows-consensus-on-need-for-change/