The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which reinforces their common mission to uphold individuals’ data protection and privacy rights, and cooperate internationally to achieve this goal.

The MoU builds on the strong collaboration already established in other forums that both authorities mutually participate in, such as the Global Privacy Assembly and the G7 Data Protection Authorities Roundtable.

Setting out how the authorities will continue to share experiences and best practices, the MoU will ensure they cooperate on projects of interest, share information or intelligence to support their regulatory work, and promote dialogue among data protection authorities and other digital regulators.

“Today’s MoU formalises the existing and ongoing collaboration between my office and the EDPS,” The UK information commissioner John Edwards said. “We’ll continue to work together both bilaterally, and in other international groups, to find pragmatic solutions to ensure that organisations are supported and aware of their data protection, while upholding people’s information rights.”

Importantly, the MoU will not involve the sharing of personal data and claims to be in line with the ICO’s legal responsibilities.

In joint investigations, the two organisations will be able to share with each other some information as long as they follow appropriate confidentially and security measures.

The MoU follows years of severing ties between the UK and the EU in terms of data laws. In 2018, the UK officially set out its own UK GDPR, changing their data protection regulations to fall under the jurisdiction of the ICO rather than the EU’s data protection authority.

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Still yet to be formalised, the UK has been working on further distancing itself from GDPR, with its draft Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, which is set to dramatically change data protection laws in the UK.

“This MoU aims to further strengthen the EDPS and ICO’s joint commitment to ensure a consistent and coherent approach to the protection of individuals’ rights to privacy and data protection,” Wojciech Wiewiórowski, European Data Protection Supervisor said. “This document maps out concretely how both of our authorities, with our respective experiences and knowledge, plan to prioritise individuals’ fundamental rights across the EU and the UK.”