Lawrence Jones MBE, the CEO of British data hosting and cloud computing specialist UKFast, is hailing the government announcement on the regulation of personal data.
The new Data Protection Bill is set to deliver much-needed controls over personal data for individuals and provide confidence in digital businesses trading in personal data.
Jones says the legislation must be at least equal to levels of protection offered by the EU's General Data Protection Legislation (GDPR) which comes into force in May 2018.
Jones said: "The 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. We're in an incredibly strong position as we hold the highest privacy standards, but we need to keep that up after we leave the EU.
"In light of Brexit we have been calling on the UK government to deliver legislation at least equal to the GDPR, so it's reassuring to see Matt Hancock announce these measures to implement the EU law today.
"Businesses are built upon confidence – 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.
"Strong 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. We need to ensure the right safeguards are in place once we leave the EU in order to maintain and then strengthen our position.
"At 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. We 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."
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