 had come with a talk on the EU data protection reform which is the new data protection law we're all going to be subjected to as of May 2018 but I'm obviously not giving that talk now I still can if you want me to at your conference obviously this is sort of this I cobbled this together in the hotel last night we're all reacting to breaking news as we get it I'm going to continue to write and blog about this as more facts become clear so you may want to keep an eye on my website which is webdevlaw.uk or sign up for my monthly newsletter I don't spam the link is there's two links on the site and I'm gonna do my best to keep you all updated one thing I'll tell you of course is I am not a lawyer but neither are 99.9% of the people commenting on Brexit right now so yesterday happened it actually happened we didn't think it was gonna happen but it happened I was in Hale'i and I realized I was doing this unconsciously I didn't even realize I was doing it I used to do that to my daughter when she was a baby and she had an upset tummy to calm her down I was doing that to myself so that just tells you what an impact it's had on those of us from the UK who are here at word camp here up I'm gonna try to talk you through the implications of what Brexit could mean for our work on the web and the digital professions in future I'm not gonna get into issues of passports nationality can I continue to work in the UK can I continue to work in Europe we just don't know that at all what is actually going to happen now well the first thing you need to understand about the referendum was that there it was not legally binding it has no legal or political force the referendum had as much legal force as a pole daddy pole that is all it was what happens now when you're gonna be seeing a lot about this in the media is something called article 50 and this is part of the Treaty of EU membership which talks about leaving what happens now is the country that wants to leave has to invoke article 50 to the EU no one can force the country to do it the EU can't force the country to do it and it's been over well it's been close to 36 hours now and the UK has not invoked article 50 the EU is stamping their feet saying get on with it that is just smoke and mirrors they can't force anything and what some commentators are seeing is a stalemate when David Cameron gave his resignation speech yesterday he said he is going to put article 50 to his successor which is at least three months away so he's bought himself three months of time and even Boris Johnson has said there is no rush so this is starting to look like a big political stalemate if you were cynical you could say the entire referendum itself was a chess game between members of the Bullingdon Club that is what it is really starting to look like so we have a couple of months of absolute uncertainty where we are waiting for article 50 to be invoked and as I said some commentators are saying it may well not be ever if the UK was to invoke article 50 that would mean at least two years of negotiations to at least two to disentangle all these laws it's going to take at least ten years for a full EU exit from the European Union if it does happen so that's the first point I want to make about your business and your digital work nothing is going to change overnight nothing is going to change this year a lot of people throughout the referendum asked if the UK could have special status could we sort of be half in half out of the EU the answer is no number one we couldn't be a part of the EEA like Norway and Iceland because one of the prerequisites of EEA membership is freedom of movement number two is a lesson we in Scotland learned with the first independence referendum which is you can't retain special concessions in a system you've already left number three the rest of the EU is seriously pissed off with the UK right now a number four it's the old saying if you give a mouse a crumb he's going to want a whole cookie if the EU lets the UK stay half in half out with special status then every region not member state region in the EU that has a grievance is going to want to go out or go half in half out so no the EU is not going to be half in half out with any special status the one question everyone asked me over and over throughout this whole campaign was if we leave the EU do we still need to comply with X law whatever Brexit does not get you out of compliance with EU digital laws if you are still doing business in Europe if you still have customers in Europe you still have to retain all of these laws as if you were still in the EU what is going to happen to the EU laws that are already on the books in the UK well we're not going to have a scorched earth thing where they just start tearing up all EU laws for the sake of it things like the consumer rights directive which was the e-commerce reform that banned a lot of dark patterns is still going to stay on the books that's not going to change the one thing that really worries me in terms of what they're going to look to get rid of is ECHR that's the European Convention on Human Rights Theresa May has been gagging to get rid of that for a long time because that contains the safeguards that have prevented her from massive from ratcheting up mass digital surveillance in the UK she's got her investigatory powers bill going through the system right now which is the anti-terrorism law enforcement regulation that basically wants to hoover up all of our data and with the ECHR gone she can ratchet it up however she likes and that's not even the worst part in the past four hours she's emerged as a possible alternative to Boris Johnson as the next Prime Minister I'd suggest you join open rights group now if you're not already a member what is Brexit if it does indeed happen going to mean for laws in the pipeline nothing's going to happen with accessibility we're already okay on that that moss oh boy with if you're still selling to customers in the EU you still have to comply with that moss and collect taxes on behalf of all these European customers but you lose the moss system which means you have to register with the tax authority of every country where you're doing business in Europe the EU that action campaign are meeting with the HMRC in the Treasury next week to discuss the next steps cookies you still have to comply with the cookie law if you're still doing business in Europe I'm helping to work on a consultation with a group called the web guild you can read about this on my blog because the eos already is already put the next cookie law out to public consultation we're still going to participate in this at least we get some traction on our under our belt about how we consult on digital laws in a non EU Britain you can read about that on my log by blog data protection here's the big one here's the big big big one and please give me an extra minute to discuss this if we go out of the EU but we still do business in Europe we still have to be on an adequate level of data protection with Europe both with the current 1995 regulation and with the 2018 regulation if we don't we become just like America that has inadequate data protection and does not protect the data that we're handling and if you've been if you've been following the safe harbor privacy shield data drama that now becomes safe harbor privacy shield to the one worry some people have said is that a non EU Britain then waters down privacy and data protection laws to attract inward investment from tech giants so what's immediately immediately head for us number one is be careful what you wish for anyone who has said let's leave the EU so that we get out of the cookie law or VAPMOS or whatever now you're going to get the UK's version you're going to have increased secure scrutiny from your EU clients wanting to know what is going on you may have to renegotiate some contracts you're going to have some clients asking you to get your data out of Britain and put it into the EU you're going to see a brain drain of businesses and people I have already talked to people who say they're leaving we need to organize as a profession because we've lost the big boogeyman of the EU who we blame for all our problems now and as Matt said yesterday we are the 1% we are here in Europe in a bubble in a supportive international community back home it's hell and we need to carry over those values of open source and the word press ethos more than ever thank you