Reply to post:

Things come to a head when HMG tries to get an equivalency ruling from the EU for data exchange post-Brexit. They're going to have to take steps to show that they've cleaned things up and they don't have much time to do it. More critically, they don't have much time to realise they have to do it. Even if they did the EU would be well advised to demand inspection rights by their own staff. That'd go down well with the Brexiteers. Not that any of those noise-makers would have anything to lose by the UK not having a Privacy Figleaf of its own; any of them with business interests likely to be affected will have moved them out of the UK by then.