Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Key definition

Data definition

What does Data mean? In legal practice, data describes information recorded in any form—especially electronically stored information (ESI)—organised or capable of being organised for a particular purpose, and capable of being processed or transmitted. It covers structured and unstructured material such as database entries, spreadsheets, emails and messaging content, documents, images, audio/video, metadata, system logs, backups and cloud-stored content. Data is not defined in the Civil Procedure Rules of England and Wales (nor generally in equivalent court rules), which instead use the broad concept of a document as anything in which information is recorded, encompassing electronic data and metadata. Statutes define data contextually: UK GDPR...

UK GDPR and DPA 2018: key provisions on general processing, special category and criminal offence data, exemptions, ICO powers, fees and DUAA 2025 reforms

Published by a LexisNexis Information Law expert

Practice notes

The Data protection ACT 2018 (DPA 2018)

The DPA 2018 sets out a number of data protection frameworks within UK data protection law, covering the following:

general processing of personal Data subject to the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation, Assimilated Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (UK GDPR)
processing of personal data by competent authorities for law enforcement purposes
processing of personal data by the intelligence services

This Practice Note concentrates on those provisions of the DPA 2018 that relate to general processing in connection with the UK GDPR. It therefore addresses general processing in connection with the UK GDPR. It highlights matters most pertinent to commercial organisations and, for example, does not cover rules applying to manual, unstructured processing by certain public sector bodies, or processing connected with immigration, defence or national security. Accordingly, its scope excludes those special-case provisions.

For an introduction to the UK GDPR, see Practice Note: The UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

The UK GDPR regime replaces the preceding framework under the General Data Protection Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (EU GDPR), following Brexit. The DPA 2018 was originally enacted principally to implement aspects of the EU GDPR and EU law relating to law enforcement processing...

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Web page updated on 22/05/2026

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