The United Kingdom has joined several agreements with binding commitments to open transfers of data across borders, including the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, of the One Part, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, of the Other Part (Art. 201), the Agreement between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Japan for a Comprehensive Economic Partnership (Art. 8.84), the Australia-United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement (Art. 14.10), the Free Trade Agreement between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and New Zealand (Art. 15.14), the Digital Economy Agreement between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Republic of Singapore (Art. 8.61-F), and the Free Trade Agreement between Iceland, the Principality of Liechtenstein and the Kingdom of Norway and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (Art. 4.11).

The Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018), which replaced the Data Protection Act 1998, incorporates the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which strictly governs the processing and sharing of personal data. The UK GDPR came into force on January 1, 2021, following the UK's official departure from the EU. In the UK, a child can consent to the transfer of data at the age of 13, whereas this age of consent is 16 in the EU. There are further differences regarding how personal data is defined (the UK has a more limited definition), how criminal data is processed, how data subject rights are handled, and how administrative fines are handled.

Section 4 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 gives the UK police, security services, and other public bodies the power to require telecommunications companies to retain communications data for any citizen. Retention notices cannot require data to be retained for more than 12 months, and these notices can only be issued under specific circumstances relating to national security and serious crime.

The UK Data Protection Act 2018 requires that the appointment of a data protection officer (DPO) is mandatory if the organisation is a public authority; the organisation’s core activities consist of data processing operations that require regular and systematic monitoring of data subjects on a large scale, and/or the organisation’s core activities consist of large-scale processing of special categories of data (sensitive data such as personal information on health, religion, race or sexual orientation) and/or personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences. Similarly, data protection impact assessments are required in situations where processing is likely to result in a high risk to individuals.

The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 gives the UK government, including the police, security services, and other public bodies, the power to intercept targeted or bulk communications as well as collect bulk communications data. The Data Retention and Acquisitions Regulations 2018 amended certain pieces of the 2016 Act, raising the threshold for data interception or collection to apply to serious crimes. However, a court order is not necessary in all cases for public bodies to intercept communications data.

The Electronic Commerce Regulations 2002, which transposed the EU's e-Commerce Directive into UK Law, provides the legal basis governing internet service provider (ISP) liability, including a conditional safe harbour. The Directive covers any type of infringement of third-party rights, including intellectual and industrial property rights and personality rights.
The limitations on liability in the Regulations apply to clearly delimited activities (mere conduit, caching and hosting) carried out by internet intermediaries rather than to categories of service providers or types of information. The eCommerce Regulations implement the eCommerce Directive into the UK law in an almost mirrored manner with one potentially noteworthy difference in the language. While the EU Directive uses the expression “should not be liable” (in relation to intermediaries), the Regulations expand this phrase into protection from liability “for damages or for any other pecuniary remedy or for any criminal sanction”. As a result, various forms of injunctive relief are excluded from the implemented provision.While the EU e-Commerce Directive is no longer applied to the UK, the latest government guidance states that "the government is committed to upholding the liability protections now that the transition period has ended. For companies that host user-generated content on their online services, there will continue to be a ‘notice and takedown’ regime where the platform must remove illegal content that they become aware of or risk incurring liability."

The Electronic Commerce Regulations 2002, which transposed the EU's e-Commerce Directive into UK Law, provides the legal basis governing internet service provider (ISP) liability, including a conditional safe harbour. The Directive covers any type of infringement of third-party rights, including intellectual and industrial property rights and personality rights.
The limitations on liability in the Regulations apply to clearly delimited activities (mere conduit, caching and hosting) carried out by internet intermediaries rather than to categories of service providers or types of information. The eCommerce Regulations implement the eCommerce Directive into the UK law in an almost mirrored manner with one potentially noteworthy difference in the language. While the EU Directive uses the expression “should not be liable” (in relation to intermediaries), the Regulations expand this phrase into protection from liability “for damages or for any other pecuniary remedy or for any criminal sanction”. As a result, various forms of injunctive relief are excluded from the implemented provision.While the EU e-Commerce Directive is no longer applied to the UK, the latest government guidance states that "the government is committed to upholding the liability protections now that the transition period has ended. For companies that host user-generated content on their online services, there will continue to be a ‘notice and takedown’ regime where the platform must remove illegal content that they become aware of or risk incurring liability."

The UK has ratified the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Performances and Phonograms Treaty.

In the United Kingdom, trade secrets are protected from unjustified use and disclosure by common law – under the law of confidence – and the Trade Secrets Regulations of 2018. The regulations implement Directive (EU) 2016/943 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2016 on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) in the United Kingdom. They establish broad criteria for information that qualifies for protection, strict and non-time-limited protections, and clear sanctions against unlawful disclosure.

It is reported that there is no obligation for passive infrastructure sharing in the country to deliver telecom services to end users. However, it is practised in both the mobile and fixed sectors based on commercial agreements. Moreover, Directive 2014/61/EU on measures to reduce the cost of deploying high-speed electronic communications networks is implemented in the United Kingdom via the Building (Amendment) Regulations 2016 and The Communications (Access to Infrastructure) Regulations 2016.

In 2020, the UK government invested USD 500 million in OneWeb, a company that delivers broadband satellite internet service through mid-orbit satellite constellations. While the UK is not the largest shareholder in OneWeb, it is reported to have a golden share of 45% in the company, effectively giving it control over who has access to the network. The UK government has stated that OneWeb will help deliver on commitments to super-fast broadband provision across the UK and will help the UK Space Agency improve upon current GPS navigation capabilities.

It is reported that the UK mandates functional and accounting separation for operators with significant market power (SMP) in the telecom market.

The Telecommunications Security Act 2021 gives the UK government the power to remove high-security risk vendors from the UK telecommunications infrastructure. The Act specifically bans new purchases of equipment from Chinese telecommunications company Huawei and mandates the removal of all Huawei equipment from the 5G network by 2027. Moreover, according to the UK's Office of Communications (Ofcom), the Act "allows the government to set out specific security requirements that providers must meet. This will include making sure telecoms providers securely design, construct and maintain network equipment that handles sensitive data; reduce supply chain risks; carefully control access to sensitive parts of the network; and make sure the right processes are in place to understand the risks facing their public networks and services." The Electronic Communications (Security Measures) Regulations 2022 supplements the Act, providing 16 regulations that further detail security measures expected to be put in place by network or service providers, ranging from securely designing and maintaining their public network to helping their third-party suppliers to identify and reduce risks of security compromise.

All government bodies must comply with Open Standards Principles for software interoperability data and document formats in government IT, and they must apply for an exemption if they do not comply with these requirements. Additionally, the Government has mandated a preference for using open-source software for future developments and has issued a manual that lays out the standards that must be used for all new digital public services developed across the British central governmental administration. Principle 12 of the Government Digital Service (GDS) Service Standard states: "Make all new source code open and reusable, and publish it under appropriate licences. Or if this is not possible, provide a convincing explanation of why this cannot be done for specific subsets of the source code."

Section 39 of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 (SBEE) gives the Minister for the Cabinet Office or relevant Secretary of State the power to impose regulations on public procurement in order to meet the goal of increasing government spending with SMEs (the goal moved from 25% in 2015 to 33% in 2020).