The Internet and Privacy
Debate between Lord Foster of Bath and Robert HalfonWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Robert Halfon
My hon. Friend is exactly right. It is that sort of thing that I hope the independent commission of inquiry would consider.
Although internet companies are global, nothing would stop the Government from fining their operations in the UK.
I stand before the Chamber known as Robert Halfon. However, if I took the advice of the Google chief executive, Eric Schmidt, I might have changed my name by now. In August, Mr Schmidt suggested that people might have to change their names in order to wipe their personal histories as captured on the internet. His vision for Google is not just to monitor people, but to predict their behaviour. He has said that
“most people don’t want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next”.
In the future, Google will
“know…who you are…what you care about…who your friends are”.
Mr Schmidt also said:
“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
Therein lies the problem we have been discussing today. It is the nub of the whole subject. For Mr Schmidt and his company, Google, the burden of taking defensive action because of activity by internet companies lies on the individual. In fact, in my view and that of many others, it should be the opposite.
Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)
On that very point, would my hon. Friend not accept that it is almost impossible for the individual to take action? We saw that in particular, for example, in 2007, in the what I would call illegal trials by BT of the system of Phorm to identify internet users’ advertising preferences, so that they can be targeted. The individual cannot protect him or herself.
Robert Halfon
In some ways my hon. Friend is right, but that is why we should have an independent commission and a Bill of Rights, because they would help. We will never be able to stop everything, but we would have some right of redress. It should be up to the internet companies to respect the rights of the individual, not the other way around.
I am calling for an internet Rill of Rights, a proper inquiry and an Information Commissioner who genuinely acts to safeguard our liberties. I hope that hon. Members and the Government will be able to support that.