Mobile Networks: Resilience

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Lord Brabazon of Tara

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

As the noble Lord knows, the Government have made huge progress in extending the availability of both broadband and mobile connectivity. The Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review showed the way to increasing the amount of fibre optic cable across the country, which is currently behind the European average, and we now plan to do that. One of its features is the “outside in” policy, which will enable rural areas to have priority in the rolling out of fibre-optic cable.

[Lord Brabazon of Tara (Con)]

My Lords, if I had come from abroad and was using a foreign mobile phone, the O2 outage would not have affected me because my phone would have switched to a different network. Could we not arrange that, if such a thing happened again, our domestic phones would also switch to a different network?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I am not sure my noble friend is entirely correct. The problem involved Ericsson, a third-party software supplier to O2, and had worldwide effects, so there is no guarantee that his foreign phone would have worked. I hasten to add that that was only for data, not voice.

Broadband: Full-fibre Coverage

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Lord Brabazon of Tara

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I think what the Chancellor was referring to was an ambition that in due course—we are saying by 2033—there will be nationwide coverage of fibre to the premises, which I think everyone understands is superior in every way to copper wire. Therefore, if we have nationwide coverage of fibre to the premises, we will not need copper wires.

[Lord Brabazon of Tara (Con)]

My Lords, where I live in London I have superfast broadband, something like 70 megabits a second. That is fibre to the green box in the street and old copper wire to my premises. Is that not totally adequate for nearly everybody? Would it not be a huge waste of money and very disruptive to do the last bit in fibre?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I think that it will be sensible by 2033 because there will be a long-term investment by the market in what is the technology of choice. My noble friend is fortunate to live near enough to the cabinet that he gets that sort of speed from his copper wire. Basically, the further you are from the cabinet, the worse the speed gets. I notice he did not say what speed he gets at his other home in the Isle of Wight, which I believe is slightly slower than that.

General Data Protection Regulation

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Lord Brabazon of Tara

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brabazon of Tara]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government for what purpose small clubs and charities have to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation, which came into force on 25 May.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)]

My Lords, clubs and charities which handle personal data will need to comply with the general data protection regulation in the Data Protection Act 2018 because people have the right to expect organisations of all sizes to keep their data safe and secure and not to misuse it. Small clubs and charities may also process sensitive personal data, such as medical records or children’s data. It is especially important that this is kept safe and secure and used appropriately. To assist smaller organisations, which may have more limited access to legal resources, the Information Commissioner’s Office has published a range of user-friendly material on the GDPR on its website and set up a dedicated phone line for small businesses and charities.

[Lord Brabazon of Tara (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that reply. He has confirmed that any club, however small, that keeps a record of its membership must register, and not just register but renew and pay up every year. I will not ask my noble friend to give an estimate of the numbers involved, because it must be many thousands and I do not know who on earth is going to keep track of it all. I doubt whether anybody knows the numbers. But can my noble friend tell me what these organisations are doing wrong at the moment? What ill is being done that is going to be cured by making them involve themselves in this process?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am glad that my noble friend realises that it is very important to pay the fee that is required, as agreed by this House last month, in order to fund the ICO. All this is clearly explained on the ICO website under the heading, “The Data Protection Fee: A Guide for Controllers”. As for ills, it is not that any organisation, or even individual, has committed any sin, or that there is an ill to be cured; this is about individual data subjects’ rights. As far as an individual data subject is concerned, if his or her sensitive personal data is misused—for example, by not being kept securely—the damage done to that person or organisation is the same whether it is by a large or a small organisation. That is why the GDPR requires all data controllers, unless they are using it just for personal or household matters, to be clearer with people how their data is going to be used, to process it where it is lawful to do so, and, very importantly, to make sure it is held securely.