UK’s ICO to look at data collection plan on public website from British government

The UK’s data protection authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office is looking at the British government plan to gather data from the Gov.uk website, as a resource for “targeted and personalised information to be gathered, analysed and fed back actively to support key decision making” with Brexit. According to Buzzfeed, the UK’s prime minister had instructed departments to share data they collect about usage of the Gov.uk portal so that it can feed into preparations for leaving the European Union at the end of October. According to Euractiv, the news drew strong reactions from opposition parties, with the Liberal Democrats Brexit spokesperson Tom Brake writing to Elizabeth Denham, the head of the UK’s ICO, in order to clarify what purposes the data may have actually been used for.