Data Protection and Digital Information Bill

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 19th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)]

My Lords, I have now reached the grand old age of 71, and it is a worrying fact that I think this puts me bang on the average age of those in your Lordships’ House. So, it is a huge relief to be able to welcome to this House the two Peers, such young Peers, who have preceded me. I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, said, and I find myself in agreement with him, in that I have agreed with most of what has been said in this debate so far. I also echo his welcome to the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, who brings real front-line experience of the effects of what we do in this House on small and medium-sized enterprises. He is someone that I know noble Lords will want to hear from in the years to come—and in view of his age, we can look forward to very many of them.

I declare my interest as chairman of the advisory panel of Thales, a digital company, and a member of the Post Office Horizon Compensation Advisory Board. I have learned in relation to the Post Office scandal that the complexity of computers is such that nobody really fully understands exactly what programs will do, so it is absurd that there is still in law a presumption that computers will operate as they are intended to. I hope that noble Lords will be able to turn their minds to changing that in the relatively near future.

I can be brief, because I was intending to raise issues relating to privacy, cookies and information which have already been so well canvassed by my noble friend Lord Kamall. Currently, we have to consent to cookies and terms and conditions, but we do not read them, we do not understand them, we do not know their effect—we do not have time. We will do anything for convenience, so the consent that we give is neither informed nor freely given. My noble friend Lord Kamall said what I wanted to say about an open electoral register. The thought of sending paper letters to everyone to inform them about the use of their data seems disproportionate and I, too, would like to know what on earth the ICO is thinking of in demanding such notification to everybody in the Experian case. I also adopt his questions about exemptions from getting consent to cookies when they are purely functional and non-intrusive. But there is no need for me to say it again, so I will not.