Digital Economy Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Chris Skidmore and Scott Mann

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Skidmore]

Q Several witnesses have expressed various degrees of concern about issues of privacy, whether merited or not. In terms of what is taking place in Canada, have you seen any data leaks or anything that would raise concerns about what we are pursuing?

Professor Sir Charles Bean: I am certainly not aware of any leaks or anything. They are clearly very concerned about making sure that personal information is not divulged. It is very important that the information made available is not only anonymised but cannot be reverse engineered to find out who the agent concerned might be.

If you are looking at information on companies, there may well be, if you are not very careful, information that might be reverse engineered to find out that the name of the company is probably such and such. It is very important that you have good processes to make sure that the information that is provided to researchers is sufficiently anonymised but, as I say, the Canadian experience suggests that you can do that quite happily.

[Scott Mann]

Q One of the biggest contributing factors for people moving house is having access to a decent broadband signal. Have you done any statistical or economic modelling of population densities and movement away from cities to rural areas? Is that a piece of work that you would be prepared to do to find out the economic benefits to rural areas as part of the USO?

Professor Sir Charles Bean: That is not really my territory.

Hetan Shah: Ditto. I am here to talk about the stats and research clauses. I do not know about the other bits, I am afraid.