Digital Understanding

Debate between Lord Maxton and Lord Clement-Jones

Thursday 7th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, may I be the 31st speaker to congratulate, quite justifiably, the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, on initiating this debate and on the way she introduced it? This has been a really important debate and of course it has stimulated terrific contributions from all sides of the House. I declare the interests in the register in relation to ombudsman services, Queen Mary University of London, the AI Select Committee and the all-party AI group, all of which seem to have coalesced in this debate, which is a very strange experience.

There have been some very powerful and well informed speeches today on skills, on infrastructure and on inclusion. I am not going to go over that ground: it was extremely knowledgeable and I agree with a huge amount of what has been said, particularly on the state of our infrastructure. I recommend that the Minister take his holidays in Estonia in future, rather than with the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart: that might be a sensible solution.

[Lord Maxton]

The noble Lord is aware, of course, that Estonia insists on every citizen having an identity card, which is a smart card.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

I was going to deal with the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, later, but if he talks to the Government Digital Service about blockchain technologies, he might find that the technology in the Verify software will move into blockchain and therefore there will be no need for identity cards. I am very happy to give him a little instruction later.

I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, and the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, that we need to look at the broader issues relating to digital understanding. Indeed, doteveryone has a very interesting agenda, bringing to our attention that we cannot simply compartmentalise some of these issues—that is why we have had such an interesting debate today. The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, reminded us about the pace of change and the fact that we are in a new world, with digital technologies opening up new opportunities around prediction, machine learning, the internet of things and the use of algorithms. We need to take action, as the noble Baroness urged, on digital understanding. It impacts on our lives and affects the choices we make as citizens, and the decisions that are made about us and for us by businesses and government bodies, particularly in ways that affect us financially.

The noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, made an extremely important point about the impact of immersion in the screen world. We need to understand the impact that is having on us.

Of course, there are also very strong positives, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, reminded us, as did the noble Lord, Lord Patel, in terms of healthcare. We must ensure as we experience the “fourth industrial revolution” that we know who has power over us and what values are in play when that power is exercised, including in terms of social media and fake news, as the noble Lord, Lord Black, reminded us. Of course, that includes us as parliamentarians and public servants, as my noble friends Lord Kirkwood and Lord Scriven reminded us. It is vital for the proper functioning of our society and, as the Government declare in the context of their statement of intent on the new data protection Bill, for the maintenance of public trust.

The Government’s digital strategy touches somewhat on the issue of digital capability but we need to go much further. There are three crucial elements I will briefly highlight in this context. The first is the need to understand the power of big data and what is known as data capitalism. I think the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, would refer to it as “Big Brother syndrome”. What is being collected, when, what is it being used for—as the noble Lord, Lord Mair, said—how reliable is it and who is it being shared with? How long is it retained and when can it be expunged? What is the impact on those who are not of an age of majority? Many of us, having worked on the Digital Economy Bill and about to work on the new data protection Bill, will not have a readily available answer. I am sure the Minister will enlighten us.

We need to be able to look beneath the outer layer of the tech giants, as many noble Lords today have reminded us, to see what the consequences are of signing up to their standard terms. What redress do we have for misuse or breach of cybersecurity or identity theft? What data are they collecting and sharing? I believe very firmly, as my party does, in the need for a digital Bill of Rights so that people’s power over their own information is protected.

Secondly, we need to understand the impact—sometimes beneficial but also sometimes prejudicial—of AI, machine learning and the algorithms employed on the big data that are collected. The noble Lord, Lord Rees, reminded us about chatbots, a growing feature of our lives: semi-autonomous interactive computer programs that mimic conversation with people using artificial intelligence.

On algorithms, I recommend Cathy O’Neil’s recent book Weapons of Math Destruction as autumn reading. The potential for bias in algorithms, for instance, is a great concern. How do we know in future when a mortgage, grant or insurance policy is refused that there is no bias in the system? I have argued on a number of occasions for ethics advisory boards when those algorithms are employed in the corporate sector. There must be readily understood standards of accountability, and with these go explainability and transparency, remediability, responsibility and verifiability. A whole raft of different areas needs addressing. The concept of accountability, and with it responsibility and remediability, in particular, means that our complaints and dispute resolution systems must be fit for purpose. That means being readily accessible and understood. If ombudsman schemes are to continue to be effective in improving business practice and in tackling consumer detriment, their role and capabilities must change. These schemes must understand and engage with fairness in an emerging digital world.

Finally, there is the need for young people starting in higher and further education to have the tools to understand the challenges of the future and the skills they will need. We have had very important contributions on the secondary sector. What skills will be in demand in the future? The Royal Society in its Machine Learning report makes a strong case for cross-disciplinary skills. Other skills include cross-cultural competency, novel and adaptive thinking and social intelligence. We need new, active programmes to develop these skills. To be able to make career choices, young people need to have much better information, at the start of their working lives, about the growth prospects for different sectors. We are going to need skills in creativity, data usage and innovation, but we may well not need quite so much in the way of analytical skills in the future because that may be done for us. In the face of this, young people need to be able to make informed choices about the type of jobs which will be available. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, made that point.

It is vital that we treat AI as a tool, not as a technology that controls us, and the greatest priority of all is the need to ensure public understanding. Public awareness of AI and machine learning is extremely low, even if what it delivers is well recognised. We then have to go through the question of what kind of values we want to instil in our new technology. The noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady O’Neill, raised this point. We cannot be cyber romantics—an extremely good phrase in the circumstances; we need to establish what the noble Baroness aptly called a “digital civilisation”. We do not yet have consensus on that, but I hope that as we work on, develop and debate the Government’s digital charter we will be groping our way towards some kind of understanding of what the future world should look like.

Digital Economy Bill

Debate between Lord Maxton and Lord Clement-Jones

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, I add my voice to the thanks offered to the Minister by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for having now included this amendment, albeit there are some questions to be asked. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us why the wording is rather different from that in the amendment we put down in Committee. Those differences need to be accounted for but this is a good way of delivering on a commitment that the Government made. It is really the final fruits of the Sieghart report and will be strongly welcomed by authors and writers across the country. We all value the public lending right, which makes a small but very significant addition to the income of authors.

[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, I too welcome the amendment; it is well worth while, but it is worth making a point I made earlier. Of course, there are now books that are written entirely as e-books and not published at all in printed form; they are published for the Kindle or similar devices. Does this amendment cover these as well? Does it give the author of such books exactly the same rights as the author of a book published in printed form?

Of course, e-books are now lent not just by public libraries. Amazon has its own public service—well, a service anyway; it is not public; you pay for it—whereby it can lend you a book that you can read on your Kindle for a limited time and that is available only as an e-book and not in printed or any other form. Do the same rights extend to authors whose books are lent in this form? Are these the same rights you would get through a public library?

My last point is also one I have asked about before. Public libraries in Scotland, of course, come under the local authorities, and local authorities in Scotland come under the Scottish Parliament. Is this a devolved matter or will it now be covered by the UK as a whole?

Digital Economy Bill

Debate between Lord Maxton and Lord Clement-Jones

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 2nd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I am absolutely delighted that we have had the views of the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, about my amendment before I had a chance to speak to it, but maybe that’s life—he has given me the benefit of his views before I have set my own on record. I thought that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, set out extremely well the frustrations of those of us who, in the words of my noble friend Lord Storey, are very keen to make sure we get the right shape for this part of the Bill. There is absolutely no difference between us, in that we wish to see Part 3 be as effective as possible in preventing access to child pornography. We have been debating for only an hour and it is quite clear that this part of the Bill is worryingly embryonic.

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

My Lords, just for the sake of clarity, the noble Lord used the term “child pornography”, which is not the purpose of the verification. Verification is to stop children accessing pornography—let us get that absolutely right and on the record.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, for that intervention. He is entirely correct—I misspoke. We are also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for highlighting that the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee both pointed out considerable flaws in the way this part of the Bill is constructed.

In particular, I want to speak about the lack of appeal mechanisms. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee said:

“We consider it inappropriate for the important question of appeals to be left to ‘arrangements’ made by the regulator, subject only to the approval of the Secretary of State, without any type of Parliamentary scrutiny”.


The committee was not the only one that made such comments. Interestingly enough, even the UN Special Rapporteur has commented on this:

“Moreover, I express concern at the lack of judicial oversight with respect to the power of the age-verification regulator to shut down websites that do not comply with the age-verification requirement. Any legislation restricting the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy, as well as any determination on the shut down of websites must be undertaken by a body which is independent of any political, commercial or unwarranted influence in a manner that is neither arbitrary nor discriminatory”.


That is fairly powerful testimony.

There are a number of different ways of achieving an appeals mechanism. The first mechanism, to which the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, takes such considerable exception, is to have a judicial process at the beginning, before any website blocking can take place. The other is to allow an appeal after a website has been blocked. With regard to the appeal afterwards, at the time the amendment was drafted it was thought that the BBFC would be the age verification regulator, and we very much welcomed its involvement. However, it has now become clear—perhaps “clear” is not the adjective I should use; rather, it appears to be emerging—that the BBFC will not be the only regulator involved in Part 3.

When Amendments 69 and 229B were drafted we tried to make the new form of appeal very similar to the kinds of appeal mechanism that the BBFC uses for the purposes of the Video Recordings Act. In fact, most of the rubric in Amendment 229B comes from the part of the BBFC website that demonstrates the system of appeals on certification and so on. That seemed a sensible and reasonable way of proceeding, on the basis that the BBFC would be the age verification regulator for the purposes of Clause 23. One may wish to adopt a different form of appeal if that is not the case.

The second approach, which the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, objects to so strongly, is set out in Amendment 66. That is obviously a mechanism designed to make sure that before the very serious step of website blocking is taken, a certain procedure is gone through, ensuring that it is a last resort, and that there is proper oversight of the way in which the age verification regulator has conducted itself. That, too, seems an entirely reasonable approach.

What we are all looking for is an indication from the Government that they accept the need for this kind of appeal mechanism, whatever it may be, and that we will be able to have a look at it on Report. I should point out that we finish our fourth day in Committee next Wednesday, after which we break up for half term, and then come almost straight back to Report stage. There is very little time for much debate and discussion about these matters. This is one of the real issues, so I hope the Minister will ensure that the discussions start immediately and that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked, the Government will respond quickly to the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, and to the Constitution Committee’s report. Otherwise we will all remain in the dark until the Minister decides to enlighten us on 22 February.