Following the UK's majority decision to leave the EU, the country may need to enact a UK-EU Privacy Shield if it wishes to continue trading with the remaining 27 member states of the European Union.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has issued a statement pointing out that the UK will need to follow the EU's upcoming data protection reforms, otherwise it will not be legal for EU data to flow to the UK. The ICO spokesperson said: "if the UK wants to trade with the Single Market on equal terms we would have to prove 'adequacy'—in other words UK data protection standards would have to be equivalent to the EU's General Data Protection Regulation framework starting in 2018."

The ICO believes UK laws will need to be changed to make them conform to the EU's new framework: "Having clear laws with safeguards in place is more important than ever given the growing digital economy, and we will be speaking to government to present our view that reform of the UK law remains necessary.

"With so many businesses and services operating across borders, international consistency around data protection laws and rights is crucial both to businesses and organisations and to consumers and citizens."

The increasing importance of cross-border dataflows means complying with EU privacy laws will not be optional: the UK will need to conform to EU laws in this area if it wishes to continue trading with EU countries.

Of course, once the UK negotiates its departure from the EU over the next couple of years, the UK will have no further say in what form those laws will take. The UK will simply have to accept the privacy protections that are agreed by the 27 EU member states.

This state of affairs is likely to be the case in many other areas where trading with the EU can only be achieved if the UK follows EU laws closely. The global, integrated nature of the digital world means that the UK's high-tech industry is likely to be particularly affected by this phenomenon.