Data (Use and Access) Act 2025: Structure

Jane Lambert

 

An inkling of the scope and complexity of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 can be gained from the introductory text:

"An Act to make provision about access to customer data and business data; to make provision about services consisting of the use of information to ascertain and verify facts about individuals; to make provision about the recording and sharing, and keeping of registers, of information relating to apparatus in streets; to make provision about the keeping and maintenance of registers of births and deaths; to make provision for the regulation of the processing of information relating to identified or identifiable living individuals; to make provision about privacy and electronic communications; to establish the Information Commission; to make provision about information standards for health and social care; to make provision about the grant of smart meter communication licences; to make provision about the disclosure of information to improve public service delivery; to make provision about the retention of information by providers of internet services in connection with investigations into child deaths; to make provision about providing information for purposes related to the carrying out of independent research into online safety matters; to make provision about the retention of biometric data; to make provision about services for the provision of electronic signatures, electronic seals and other trust services; to make provision about works protected by copyright and the development of artificial intelligence systems; to make provision about the creation of purported intimate images; and for connected purposes.

As I said in Data Protection Law Reform, the Act consists of 144 sections divided into 8 parts with 16 schedules.

Structure

The parts of the Act are as follows:

• Part 1 Access to customer data and business data (sections 1 to 26);
• Part 2 Digital verification services (sections 27 to 55); 
• Part 3 National Underground Asset Register (sections 56 to 60); 
• Part 4 Registers of births and deaths (sections 61 to 65); 
• Part 5 Data protection and privacy (sections 66 to 116):
• Chapter 1 Data protection (sections 66 to 108);
• Chapter 2 Privacy and electronic communications (sections 109 to 116);
• Part 6 The Information Commission (sections 117 to 120); 
• Part 7 Other provision about use of, or access to, data (sections 121 to 138); and 
• Part 8 Final provisions (sections 139 to 144).

The schedules are as follows:

Schedule 1: National Underground Asset Register (England and Wales): monetary penalties; 

Schedule 2: National Underground Asset Register (Northern Ireland): monetary penalties;

Schedule 3: Registers of births and deaths: minor and consequential amendments; 

Schedule 4: Lawfulness of processing: recognised legitimate interests; 

Schedule 5: Purpose limitation: processing to be treated as compatible with original purpose; 

Schedule 6: Automated decision-making: minor and consequential amendments; 

Schedule 7: Transfers of personal data to third countries etc: general processing;

Schedule 8: Transfers of personal data to third countries, etc: law enforcement processing;

Schedule 9: Transfer of personal data to third countries etc: minor and consequential amendments and transitional provision; 

Schedule 10: Complaints: minor and consequential amendments;

Schedule 11: Further minor provision about data protection;
Schedule 12: Storing information in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user;
Schedule 13: Privacy and electronic communications: Commissioner’s enforcement powers;
Schedule 14: The Information Commission;
Schedule 15: Information standards for health and adult social care in England; and
Schedule 16: Grant of smart meter communication licences.

Further Information

The Departments of State and Ministries concerned with this legislation have prepared explanatory notes on the statute.  Probably the most useful are the Overview (paras 1 to 15) and the Legal Policy (paras 16 to 83).  Also useful are the Guidance on Data Use and Access Act 2025: plans for commencement by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology ("DSIT"), the Information Commissioner's index page and the DSIT's fact sheets on the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act, the ICO and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.

Subsequent articles will discuss particular parts and schedules of the Act.  Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on +44 (0)20 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form at any time.

Related Articles

Jane Lambert  Data Protection Law Reform 23 Dec 2025

Jane Lambert Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 - Part 1: Access to Business and Customer Data 11 Jan 2026

How the GDPR works

Author Mauro Cateb
Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 unported

Jane Lambert

In my introduction to the GDPR 2 Dec 2017 I wrote that the regulation sought to balance two conflicting imperatives, namely the need to protect the public from the harm that can result from malicious, negligent or even careless processing of data that identifies living individuals and the need to safeguard free flows of such data for legitimate purposes.  As I also wrote in that article, there is nothing new about any of that. That policy is exactly the same as that of the Data Protection Directive, the Data Protection Act 1998, the Data Protection Act 1984, the Council of Europe Convention and the OECD Guidelines.

The GDPR also seeks to achieve that objective in much the same way as previous legislation.  It establishes a set of principles for processing personal data (data by which living human beings can be identified) and machinery for monitoring and enforcing compliance.  That machinery takes the form of rights for data subjects (the individuals who can be identified from the data) and obligations upon data controllers (those who control the processing of personal data) and processors (those who carry out the processing) to take reasonable steps to minimize the risk or effect of non-compliance.

The GDPR's data processing principles require personal data to be:

(a) processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject (‘lawfulness, fairness and transparency’);
(b) collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes; further processing for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes shall, in accordance with Article 89 (1), not be considered to be incompatible with the initial purposes (‘purpose limitation’);
(c) adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they are processed (‘data minimisation’);
(d) accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date; every reasonable step must be taken to ensure that personal data that are inaccurate, having regard to the purposes for which they are processed, are erased or rectified without delay (‘accuracy’);
(e) kept in a form which permits identification of data subjects for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the personal data are processed; personal data may be stored for longer periods insofar as the personal data will be processed solely for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes in accordance with Article 89 (1) subject to implementation of the appropriate technical and organisational measures required by this Regulation in order to safeguard the rights and freedoms of the data subject (‘storage limitation’);
(f) processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security of the personal data, including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage, using appropriate technical or organisational measures (‘integrity and confidentiality’)."

It is the data controller's duty to be responsible for and demonstrate compliance with those principles.

So long as data controllers and processors process personal data in accordance with those principles they are unlikely to go far wrong. However, if they stray from them, whether intentionally or not, they risk legal action in the civil courts or fines or other sanctions by the Information Commissioner or the equivalent supervisory authority of another EU member state.

As an obvious way round the legislation would be to export the data to a country that does not regulate the processing of personal data either at all or to the same extent and in the same way, the regulation restricts transfers of data abroad unless Commission is satisfied with the legal protection of personal data processing that is available in the recipient country or enforceable contractual arrangements are in place for the protection of such data. The GDPR makes clear that the regulation applies not just to data controllers and processors that are in the EU, but also to data controllers outside the EU which offer goods or services to data subjects in the EU or monitor the behaviour of such data subjects within the EU.

In the next few articles I shall drill down into each of those topics in more detail.  Should anyone wish to discuss this article, the GDPR or data protection generally, he or she should call me on +44 (0)20 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form.

Further Reading

Date	Author and Title	Publication
2 Dec 2017	Jane Lambert Introduction to the GDPR	NIPC Data Protection
1 Dec 2017	GDPR Index	NIPC Data Protection
11 Aug 2017	Data Protection Glossary	NIPC Data Protection