Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Kamall and Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd

Committee stage
Monday 16th December 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly, first, to thank everyone who has spoken so eloquently about the importance of automated decision-making, in particular its importance to public trust and the importance of human intervention. The retrograde step of watering down Article 22 is to be deplored. I am therefore grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for putting forward that this part of the Bill should not stand part. Secondly, the specific amendment that I have laid seeks to retain the broader application of human intervention for automated decision-making where it is important. I can see no justification for that watering down, particularly when there is such uncertainty about the scope that AI may bring to what can be done by automated decision-making.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, in speaking to this group of amendments I must apologise to the Committee that, when I spoke last week, I forgot to mention my interests in the register, specifically as an unpaid adviser to the Startup Coalition. For Committee, noble Lords will realise that I have confined myself to amendments that may be relevant to our healthcare and improving that.

I will speak to Amendments 111 and 116 in the names of my noble friends Lord Camrose and Lord Markham, and Amendment 115 from my noble friend Lord Lucas and the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Knight of Weymouth, as well as other amendments, including from my noble friend Lord Holmes—I will probably touch on most amendments in this group. To illustrate my concerns, I return to two personal experiences that I shared during debate on the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill. I apologise to noble Lords who have heard these examples previously, but they illustrate the points being made in discussing this group of amendments.

A few years ago, when I was supposed to be travelling to Strasbourg, my train to the airport got delayed. My staff picked me up, booked me a new flight and drove me to the airport. I got to the airport with my new boarding pass and scanned it to get into the gate area, but as I was about to get on the flight, I scanned my pass again and was not allowed on the flight. No one there could explain why, having been allowed through security, I was not allowed on the flight. To cut a long story short, after two hours of being gaslighted by four or five staff, with them not even saying that they could not explain things to me, I eventually had to return to the check-in desk—this was supposed to be avoided by all the automation—to ask what had happened. The airline claimed that it had sent me an email that day. The next day, it admitted that it had not sent me an email. It then explained what had happened by saying that a flag had gone off in its system. That was simply the explanation.

This illustrates the point about human intervention, but it is also about telling customers and others what happens when something goes wrong. The company clearly had not trained its staff in how to speak to customers or in transparency. Companies such as that airline get away with this sort of disgraceful behaviour all the time, but imagine if such technology were being used in the NHS. Imagine the same scenario: you turn up for an operation, and you scan your barcode to enter the hospital—possibly even the operating theatre—but you are denied access. There must be accountability, transparency and human intervention, and, in these instances, there has to be human intervention immediately. These things are critical.

I know that this Bill makes some sort of differentiation between more critical and less critical ADM, but let me illustrate my point with another example. A few years ago, I paid for an account with one of those whizzy fintech banks. Its slogan was: “We are here to make money work for everyone”. I downloaded the app and filled out the fields, then a message popped up telling me, “We will get back to you within 48 hours”. Two weeks later, I got a message on the app saying that I had been rejected and that, by law, the bank did not have to explain why. Once again, I ask noble Lords to imagine. Imagine Monzo’s technology being used on the NHS app, which many people currently use for repeat prescriptions or booking appointments. What would happen if you tried to book an appointment but you received a message saying, “Your appointment has been denied and, by law, we do not have to explain why”? I hope that we would have enough common sense to ensure that there is human intervention immediately.

I realise that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has a Private Member’s Bill on this issue—I am sorry that I have not been able to take part in those debates—but, for this Bill, I hope that the two examples I have just shared illustrate the point that I know many noble Lords are trying to make in our debate on this group of amendments. I look forward to the response from the Minister.