The need for the UK to pass an adequacy assessment to allow frictionless data transfers to continue after Brexit was highlighted in a report by the European Commission earlier this year.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has now written to the Commission to highlight its “inescapable conclusion [that] the UK must be unable to benefit from an adequacy decision at the present time”, putting up to £85 billion in UK digital exports to the EU at risk.

The rights group bases its assessment on the failure of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to “act on the largest data breach ever reported to it” – real-time bidding, used to track users on “virtually every website and app”.

Dr Johnny Ryan, ICCL senior fellow, said: “Thirteen per cent of the UK’s global trade relies on using EU personal data. This is now in jeopardy because of the dismal record of the UK Information Commissioner’s Office to enforce the GDPR and protect our rights.

“The European Commission’s hands are tied by the law, and it cannot allow the UK to enjoy frictionless data transfers after Brexit until it is safe for our data to be processed in the UK.”

The ICCL letter is also copied to the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, and other senior EU figures.