Brexit will be as big a challenge as Y2K was back in the late 1990's.
The threat of 'The Millenium Big', where computers just weren't ready to handle 4 digit year codes was an all-consuming passion for CIOs and CTOs of the day. Estimates put the cost of fixing the Y2K bug at between $320bn (IDC) and $600bn (Gartner). Brexit could, for Europe and UK, be a very costly exercise.
The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) due to come into force on 25th May 2018 specifies the way that organisations should handle the data that they hold. This extends to consumer rights to transfer their data from one company to another and to delete all data held. Organisations will be held to task with fines up to €20m for poor data management and data breaches.
When the UK invokes article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty it will have 2 years to complete it's 'Brexit' of the European Union. No country before has left the EU, and only one (Greenland) has left the block, then the European Economic Community (EEC).
The proposed Repeal Act proposed by Theresa May will define the strategy in law for removing UK from the European Communities Act 1972. A number of current EU laws will be adopted by the UK on 'Day Zero' to simplify the exit. But many of those are likely to be altered in the 2 year period following.
As a separate entity outside the European legislative area, UK will not be subject to the GDPR and it is thought that there may not be a 'safe harbour' agreement in place protecting the use of UK data within the EU. Companies operating in both UK and Europe, or just in UK with customers, partners or suppliers in Europe will need to rapidly consider measures to protect computer assets and data.
Companies will have to consider systems segregation between UK and EU, which will almost certainly require separate physical instances to be created. Data may have to be repatriated across the UK/EU divide, to ensure it sits in the right legal framework for its use. Processes which span national borders will have to be overhauled, often with the advice of legal experts. Revised trading and tax rules between EU and UK will have to be built into systems, and businesses may have to re-engineer their operating models so as not to be penalised.
All in all, Brexit is going to be costly for any organisation with an interest in or dealings with Europe, and for IT players, just as with Y2K, there is an opportunity for short-term windfall projects to manage the changes.
Whether you are for or against Brexit, it's going to create sizeable opportunities for the IT firms who can capitalise on the large-scale changes that Brexit will bring.
The threat of 'The Millenium Big', where computers just weren't ready to handle 4 digit year codes was an all-consuming passion for CIOs and CTOs of the day. Estimates put the cost of fixing the Y2K bug at between $320bn (IDC) and $600bn (Gartner). Brexit could, for Europe and UK, be a very costly exercise.
The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) due to come into force on 25th May 2018 specifies the way that organisations should handle the data that they hold. This extends to consumer rights to transfer their data from one company to another and to delete all data held. Organisations will be held to task with fines up to €20m for poor data management and data breaches.
When the UK invokes article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty it will have 2 years to complete it's 'Brexit' of the European Union. No country before has left the EU, and only one (Greenland) has left the block, then the European Economic Community (EEC).
The proposed Repeal Act proposed by Theresa May will define the strategy in law for removing UK from the European Communities Act 1972. A number of current EU laws will be adopted by the UK on 'Day Zero' to simplify the exit. But many of those are likely to be altered in the 2 year period following.
As a separate entity outside the European legislative area, UK will not be subject to the GDPR and it is thought that there may not be a 'safe harbour' agreement in place protecting the use of UK data within the EU. Companies operating in both UK and Europe, or just in UK with customers, partners or suppliers in Europe will need to rapidly consider measures to protect computer assets and data.
Companies will have to consider systems segregation between UK and EU, which will almost certainly require separate physical instances to be created. Data may have to be repatriated across the UK/EU divide, to ensure it sits in the right legal framework for its use. Processes which span national borders will have to be overhauled, often with the advice of legal experts. Revised trading and tax rules between EU and UK will have to be built into systems, and businesses may have to re-engineer their operating models so as not to be penalised.
All in all, Brexit is going to be costly for any organisation with an interest in or dealings with Europe, and for IT players, just as with Y2K, there is an opportunity for short-term windfall projects to manage the changes.
Whether you are for or against Brexit, it's going to create sizeable opportunities for the IT firms who can capitalise on the large-scale changes that Brexit will bring.
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