UK government says it will move away from EU's GDPR after Brexit, including possibly ending cookie consent popups, and names John Edwards as preferred ICO head
Culture secretary says move could lead to an end to irritating cookie popups and consent requests online Source: GOV.UK .
The GuardianAlex Hern
Context & Ripple Effects
The proposal follows evidence that many GDPR cookie forms failed the standard they were meant to implement, including pre-ticked choices and obscured reject-all options. It puts the UK’s consent system on a divergence track rather than treating pop-up design as a settled compliance problem.
That direction later became more concrete in the government’s data-reform response backing browser-based opt-outs, making this an early marker of a shift from site-by-site consent prompts toward browser-level controls.
First-order effects
UK websites and ad-tech providers face a possible redesign of consent flows, while the preferred ICO leadership choice ties the proposed policy shift to a new regulator appointment.
Users may see fewer site-level consent requests if the government replaces the current pop-up model rather than merely changing its presentation.
Second-order effects
Browser makers would become more central to privacy choice if opt-outs move from individual websites into browser settings, reducing publishers’ control over the consent interface.
The UK is positioning post-Brexit data policy around a distinct consent architecture, in which regulators and browsers may shape privacy choices more directly than individual websites.
If browser-based opt-outs become the operative model, competition over privacy compliance will shift from optimizing pop-ups to controlling the defaults and signals browsers transmit.
The trend: Post-Brexit UK data policy is moving consent management away from website pop-ups and toward browser-mediated privacy controls.
Now that we've left the EU we can seize the opportunity to develop a world-leading data regime that will deliver for people across the UK. Forging new global data partnerships and designing our own common sense data laws are all part of our plan. 👉 https://www.gov.uk/... https://…
.@DCMS have today announced current New Zealand Privacy Commissioner, John Edwards, as the preferred candidate for the UK's next Information Commissioner. Read more: https://www.gov.uk/... https://twitter.com/...
This is huge assault on our fundamental digital & therefore human rights. The government is using Brexit to tear up GDPR. This is a huge huge step backwards. https://twitter.com/...
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