Data Protection and Digital Information Bill

Debate between Viscount Camrose and Lord Bethell

Committee stage
Monday 15th April 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The Minister mentioned prosecutions and legal redress in the UK from international data transfer breaches. Can he share some examples of that, maybe by letter? I am not aware of that being something with a long precedent.

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

A number of important points were raised there. Yes, of course I will share—

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I am thinking very carefully about how best to answer. Yes, I do share that concern. I will set this out in more detail when I write to the noble Baroness and will place that letter in the House of Lords Library. In the meantime, I hope that my noble friend will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am enormously grateful to the Minister for his response. However, it falls short of my hopes. Obviously, I have not seen the letter that he is going to send us, but I hope that the department will have taken on board the commitments made by previous Ministers during discussions on the Online Safety Bill and the very clear evidence that the situation is getting worse, not better.

Any hope that the tech companies would somehow have heard the debate in the House of Lords and that it would have occurred to them that they needed to step up to their responsibilities has, I am afraid, been dashed by their behaviours in the last 18 months. We have seen a serious withdrawal of existing data-sharing provisions. As we approach even more use of AI, the excitement of the metaverse, a massive escalation in the amount of data and the impact of their technologies on society, it is extremely sobering to think that there is almost no access to the black box of their data.