Investigatory Powers Bill

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Gavin Newlands

Report: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael]

The point about the arm’s- length retention gets to the heart of the matter. The concerns expressed by the Opposition Front-Bench team all surround the question of a threshold, but the threshold will never be of any significance to those out there waiting to hack into this information, as we have seen only too clearly with the recent experience of TalkTalk.

[Gavin Newlands]

I could not agree more with the right hon. Gentleman. I will come to that point shortly.

The question of who retains the information is secondary to the fact that it will be retained and accessible in the first place. The Government have, true to form, merely contracted out data retention to the private sector. Many people share unease about the security of this information. As we have seen recently, private providers are susceptible to sophisticated hacking operations. The consequences, should this information get into criminal hands, are deeply worrying. Indeed, the Joint Committee on the Draft Communications Data Bill shared similar concerns when it said that storing weblog data, however securely, carried the risk that it might be hacked into or fall accidently into the wrong hands.