Data Protection Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Knight of Weymouth and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Monday 30th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

Certainly if the amendment were to have any legs in terms of using the number of employees as a parameter then that would have to be defined. However you chose to define the size of an organisation, you would need to explore how to work that out.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I chose five employees because it often denotes a small organisation or a small business. I can see that some of the businesses in that category might be fairly large. I would of course have no objection to adding an extra criterion, such as turnover, if there was a mood to write exemptions into the Bill. Other legislation has exemptions for smaller bodies. The overall objectives of the data protection legislation clearly have to be achieved but I am concerned that, in particular, some of the subsidiary provisions, such as fines and fees, which I mentioned, are demanding and worrying for smaller entities.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

I am grateful for the noble Baroness’s comments. Something certainly can be done to think more about turnover than the number of employees, otherwise there would be a big loophole, particularly around marketing and being able to set up a company to harvest data, for which the Act would not apply. It could then sell the data on. It would not need very many people at all to pursue that opportunity.

The other thing these amendments allow us to do is ask the Minister to enlighten us a little on his thinking about how the Information Commissioner’s role will develop. In particular, if it is to pursue the sorts of education activities set out in these amendments, how will it be resourced to do so? I know there are some career-limiting aspects for Ministers who promise resources from the Dispatch Box, but the more he can set out how that might work, the more welcome that would be.