Facial Recognition: Police Use
Debate between Chris Philp and John Whittingdale(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Sir John Whittingdale
I agree with my right hon. Friend. The problem at the moment is that we do not even have national guidelines. There is a complete absence, which I will come to later. I will give way to the shadow Home Secretary.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. I would like to add some context to the question of racial bias. There were allegations of racial bias a few years ago. The system was tested by the national physical laboratory about two years ago and, at the settings used by the police, no racial bias was found. That was one of the conditions set in the Bridges litigation about four years ago, and I hope that gives my right hon. Friend and other hon. Members some reassurance on the question of racial bias. It has been tested by the national physical laboratory.
Sir John Whittingdale
As I understand it, the number of false positives recorded depends to some extent on the threshold at which the technology is set.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Philp and John Whittingdale(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question and his long-standing interest in this area. Clause 50 of the Online Safety Bill already exempts recognised news publishers from the provisions of the Bill, and in clause 16 there are particular protections for content of journalistic importance. As we committed on Second Reading, I think in response to one of his interventions, we will be looking to go further to provide a right of appeal in relation to journalistic content. Work is going on to deliver that commitment right now, and we will bring forward further news as soon as possible. I will make sure that my right hon. Friend is the first to hear about it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Philp and John Whittingdale(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Chris Philp
As I said, we are putting 20,000 extra officers into the system and £85 million into the CPS, and we are increasing expenditure on rape centres and ISVAs, although I am sure that in those areas, there is more we can do. There is also a review urgently under way to see what further steps we can take, but I believe that the actions that I have outlined, which are taking place as we speak, will move us back in a happier direction.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Philp)
We at the Ministry of Justice do not track or hold data on the number of reporters who report on court proceedings, but I am sad to say that anecdotal evidence suggests that in line with the general decline in local reporting, the reporting of local courts will have declined as well. When my right hon. Friend was Secretary of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, he was instrumental in making sure, at the BBC’s charter renewal, that the local democracy reporting scheme provided £8 million a year to get local reporters into the courts. I congratulate him on that step and hope that there is more we can do along those lines in future.
Mr Whittingdale
I thank my hon. Friend, and I thank the Minister of State, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), for the work that she has done in this area. Does he share my view of how important it is that court proceedings are properly reported by trained journalists so that justice can be seen to be done? Will he continue to work with the Society of Editors, the News Media Association and others to see what further measures can be taken to achieve that?
Chris Philp
I strongly concur and can certainly give my right hon. Friend the commitment he asks for. Certainly from the perspective of Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service, staff are given training to facilitate access by journalists, and the Ministry is currently giving very active and relatively imminent consideration to ways of making sure that court decisions and proceedings are brought more directly to the public.