Online Harms White Paper

Damian Collins Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman not just for what he has said this afternoon but for the open approach he has taken to the discussion of these matters. As he says, this is one of the toughest policy challenges we face, and I believe we will resolve it only if we are able to work across the House to make sure that what we produce is as robust as it can be.

As the hon. Gentleman also says, there will be a considerable amount of resistance to what is proposed in this White Paper, and we will all need to hold our nerve in the face of that pressure. He asks about legislation, and it is our intention to legislate in the next parliamentary Session, but he will understand that there is a tension between the urgency, which we all accept exists, to tackle these harms and, indeed, to legislate to do so and the need to make sure that we have taken account of the views and the thinking that others can contribute. He knows that I have sought to do that up to this point, and I will seek to do it from this point on. I want to ensure that we make this as robust as we can, that we get it right, that we have understood the detail, and that it will stand up to the kind of scrutiny and pressure that he rightly describes. With that tension in mind, we will move as quickly as we can.

On electoral integrity, the hon. Gentleman heard me say a moment ago that the White Paper does not represent the sum total of the Government’s action in relation to harms on the internet more broadly. He will know that the Cabinet Office will imminently be bringing forward its “defending democracy” piece of work. I hope he will find in that a good deal of the material he referred to. Indeed, while a good number of the Government’s responses to the excellent piece of work produced by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee are, as he said, dealt with in the White Paper, some will be dealt with in that document.

Disinformation is, as the hon. Gentleman knows, one of the harms that we have identified in the White Paper as needing the attention of the regulator. We believe that a number of things can be done. We will expect the regulator, in its codes of practice and through the duty of care more broadly, to focus on the need to ensure that authoritative sources are prioritised over non-authoritative sources and that fact checking is available. There are other measures that the regulator could take, not least in respect of the point I made about public education. In relation to many of the issues on which disinformation is focused, we believe that the answer, at least in part, is to ensure that our fellow citizens are equipped with the skills they need to understand what they should be looking for to determine what they believe and what they do not. That is a legitimate focus for the regulator.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman mentioned competition, and I understand his focus on that. Again, I make the point that it will be dealt with, but that it will be dealt with elsewhere. He will know about the Furman review, which was recently completed at the Government’s instigation. We will take seriously what Professor Furman and his panel have said, and we will respond in due course. When we do so, the hon. Gentleman will have the opportunity to take the matter up again, and I know he will.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his kind words acknowledging the work of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee and for accepting so many of our recommendations in the White Paper. I want to ask expressly about the investigatory powers of the proposed new regulator. Does he agree that it is important that the job of the regulator is not just to identify that a failure in the duty of care has occurred, but to go into the company and investigate why that failure occurred, who knew about it and when, and what needs to be done to ensure that such a failure does not happen again? Only with that sort of internal investigation and scrutiny will we be able to set companies back on the right path.

[Jeremy Wright]

I agree with my hon. Friend. He will see in the White Paper provisions to make transparency powers available to the regulator, not just so that it can ask for annual transparency reports from online companies, but so that when the regulator thinks it appropriate to do so, it can ask specific questions about information that it wishes to have. It will of course be important, as he will recognise from the work of the Select Committee, to make sure that the regulator is properly staffed with those who have the necessary skills and understanding to ask the right questions and then understand the answers. We will certainly attend to that, and I am grateful for the help of my hon. Friend and the Committee in developing some of the further detail.

Sub-Committee on Disinformation

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

We begin with a Select Committee statement. Damian Collins will speak on the publication of the 10th report of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, on the launch of the Sub-Committee on Disinformation for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of the statement, I will call hon. Members to put questions on the subject of the statement and call Damian Collins to respond to them in turn. Hon. Members can expect to be called only once. Questions should be brief. I call the Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Damian Collins.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. Earlier this week, the Select Committee published its 10th report on the creation of the Sub-Committee on Disinformation, which followed our reports on disinformation and fake news—the final report was published in February this year, with the interim report published in July last year. Our reports on that important subject were based on an inquiry that spanned about 18 months and that took in thousands of questions and many witnesses.

The focus on disinformation and fake news comes from our belief that there is a genuine danger to democracy and society in the deliberate and malicious targeting of disinformation at citizens, largely using social media to influence what they see and their opinions about politics, society and institutions. In the discussion about disinformation, much of the focus has been on it being used in election campaigns or around political events, but it is by no means limited to that. Disinformation is becoming a serious issue in the health sphere, in particular, with anti-vaccine information and stories being disseminated through social media.

The problem of disinformation is not limited to the period of our inquiry. When we established our initial inquiry, we were particularly concerned about the role of disinformation in the United States presidential election and other elections around the world, and about the role of foreign states and, in particular, agencies such as the Internet Research Agency in St Petersburg that deliberately create campaigns and mechanisms to spread disinformation through social media and target people relentlessly.

That has become a bigger societal problem as people increasingly get their news and information through social media. In this country, about half the population receives news principally through social media. That means that, rather than going to a curated news space, such as a newspaper, a broadcaster’s piece of news or a news organisation’s website, they are receiving news and information that has been shared by their friends on social media in bitesize chunks, or they are being targeted with information by advertisers and other organisations that promote content.

We know that, during the US presidential election, the number of shares of the top 20 fake news stories was greater than that of the top 20 real news stories. The issue is fundamental to the way people receive news and information because, on the channel where they increasingly receive it, they often do not know why they are receiving it or much about the organisation that is sending it. Disinformation is often dressed up to look like real news, but it could be hyper-partisan content from people with a high degree of bias or, more seriously, content that is totally fabricated. That has been an issue for some time, but it is of growing importance because of the scale and reach of social media.

When we look at the potential application of technology, the problem is only set to get worse, given the phenomenon of deep fake content. That is when someone takes a recording of your voice—I am sure they would not do it in your case, Mr Gapes—and creates a fake video image of you, then writes their own words and has them played out through your mouth in the film. We are all familiar with those grainy films that emerge during political campaigns whose production quality is not great because they are often shot on someone’s smartphone. Imagine the capability to do that easily in a totally fake way and to release a film of a politician supposedly saying something malicious or misleading during the final days of an election campaign. That capability exists, and we need the tools in place to fight back against it.

Since we published the Committee’s report in February, we have seen other events that lead us to believe that this is an ongoing and growing problem. We were all shocked and appalled at the way in which harmful footage from the terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, was livestreamed on Facebook and shared continuously on social media platforms around the world, and particularly YouTube, for a number of days afterwards.

We are also concerned about the role of organisations that spread news and information about political events in this country—this is particularly linked to Brexit—but that we do not know much about. The Committee’s inquiry identified an organisation called Mainstream Network, which was contacting people through social media with adverts and asking them to lobby their MP to vote in favour of a hard Brexit and to “Chuck Chequers”—to use the expression at the time—and not support the Prime Minister’s negotiating strategy.

People have a right to a political opinion, and there is nothing wrong with that, but when they are being targeting by an organisation and they do know who is doing that, who is providing the money or who is supporting that organisation, that becomes a problem. In our campaigns as politicians, we have to put legal imprints on our leaflets, posters and flyers to make it clear who they are from, but people do not have to do that online, and those loopholes are being exploited. We have also seen campaigns and organisations other than just Mainstream Network, such as We are the 52% and Britain’s Future, where large amounts of money are being spent to target people with messaging, but we do not know who is doing that. That is going on all the time and on a growing scale.

The purpose of the Sub-Committee is to provide an institutional home for the Select Committee to build on the work of its initial inquiry, to look at new incidents of disinformation campaigns, where they lack transparency and where they are deliberately misleading, and to recognise that this is a form of harmful content that needs to be addressed. We look forward to the publication of the Government’s White Paper on online harms, which I believe will happen early next week, so that we can see what ideas they propose and understand more about their response to the Select Committee report, which covered many of those issues. The Sub-Committee will look at the issues arising from the White Paper and at the areas where the Government are looking for a response and consultation.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

rose—

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions are not allowed.

[Damian Collins]

The Sub-Committee will be the forum through which we look for areas where the Committee can analyse and respond to the White Paper. It will also be the forum through which we seek to hold regular sessions with important organisations and people who are investigating similar issues, and particularly the Information Commissioner.

The first meeting of the new Sub-Committee will be on Tuesday 23 April when we return from the short Easter recess. We will then question the Information Commissioner, principally about her investigation into the work of Mainstream Network and connected organisations, to understand more about who is funding that organisation and who is behind the dissemination of the content that it is sharing. That will be an important first step in the Sub-Committee’s work.

I appreciate that hon. Members have questions that they want to ask me—one of my Committee colleagues wished to jump the gun—so I will not use up every second of my 10 minutes. The Sub-Committee is a new step for the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which has never created a Sub-Committee before. We have done so because we recognise the concerns about the spread of disinformation and the pivotal role that social media play in that.

Disinformation is a growing issue for democracy and society, and we need to provide robust public policy responses to tackle it at source, as well as through the channels through which it is shared. We also need to look principally at the responsibilities of big technology companies to act more effectively against the dissemination of disinformation, to provide more tools for their users to help them identify untrustworthy sources of information, and to provide greater transparency about who is promoting that content.

[Julian Knight]

I was not certain whether I was allowed to intervene, but I will ask my question now. I welcome the advent of the Sub-Committee. In terms of the scale, this is not just about Russia or potential foreign actors intervening in our Brexit-related political crisis from a UK base or from overseas; it goes on worldwide. It is not just one foreign actor, but perhaps up to 39 foreign actors. Does my hon. Friend, the Committee Chair, agree that we need the Sub-Committee to be long standing and its scope to be as wide as possible in looking at all those other countries and what they are up to in terms of British politics?

[Damian Collins]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. This is a worldwide problem. As he knows, we took evidence during our inquiry about problems to do with disinformation in South America and across Europe—this is not just about Russian campaigns of disinformation. The reason why we decided to create this institutional home for our work on disinformation is that such work runs beyond the scope of any one particular inquiry; indeed, looking to develop successor inquiries with a narrow, defined remit could restrict us from looking at other material from elsewhere around the world.

We look forward to the Government’s White Paper and their response to the Select Committee report, because this country could provide a world-leading framework for understanding the liabilities and obligations of technology companies in terms of acting against known sources of disinformation, and I would include disinformation as a form of harmful content, along with other forms of extreme harmful content.

My hon. Friend is quite right that this is a global problem, and I hope our work in exposing what is going on can benefit other inquiries. As he knows, one reason why we established the international grand committee as part of our disinformation inquiry was to aid our partnership work with other Parliaments that are investigating these issues so that we could benefit from their insights and to share our own work.

[Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Less than two weeks ago, in the current febrile political environment, I was sent information from a closed Facebook group making the entirely false allegation that I had paid for two coaches to go to the march in London. I was made aware of that only because an individual contacted me and gave me the information. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is really important that closed groups on platforms are investigated and that this issue is dealt with urgently by Government? If so, what role does he see the Sub-Committee playing in that process?

[Damian Collins]

The hon. Gentleman, who is a member of the Select Committee, makes an important point. He will know that we discussed the role of groups with Facebook during our investigation. We believe they play a significant role in spreading disinformation; it is not just through targeted advertising that someone can drive content through a platform such as that. Indeed, as he knows, the Committee’s final report on disinformation touched on how far-right organisations are using closed Facebook groups with hundreds of thousands of members to spread content very quickly through the web. Content posted into the group by a group administrator goes immediately to the top of the news feed of members, who may in turn share it.

These closed groups may be closed to the public, but Facebook can tell what is going on in them, and it should act where closed groups are behaving irresponsibly or maliciously in spreading lies and disinformation about people. It can see who the administrators are and who is doing that.

As a consequence of the attacks in Christchurch in particular—having an independent regulator with the power to go into the tech companies to see what is going on would facilitate this—we should do an audit of the sorts of groups and organisations that were sharing and promoting the vile content involved. That could provide a really important map of the way in which these far-right groups, in particular, co-ordinate online and spread disinformation.

The hon. Gentleman is quite right that this is not just about global news stories such as the Christchurch attacks; disinformation is also taking place in individual communities. We should be able to report such things to Facebook and know that it will investigate and take action against groups, including by closing them or the administrator down if necessary.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman and all members of the Committee for a very important report. I know that the Minister is working extremely hard on these issues.

My question is about making it easier or more streamlined for the police to investigate closed Facebook pages. At this point in time, it seems to be very difficult for the police to access information even when they have suspicions about it. The fact that individuals can post anonymously without giving their own details seems to exacerbate the situation whereby they feel they can post whatever they like without any responsibility.

[Damian Collins]

The hon. Lady raises a number of very important issues. Co-operation with the authorities is important. We have seen too many cases where different social media companies have been criticised for not readily sharing information with the police as part of an investigation. Often the companies have very narrow terms of reference for when they would do that; sometimes if there is an immediate threat to life or if information might be related to a potential terror attack, they will act. However, we see hideous crimes that affect families in a grievous way and those families want the crimes to be investigated efficiently and speedily, and for the police to get access to any relevant information. I think we would have to say that the current system is not working effectively enough and that more should be done.

There should be more of an obligation on the companies to share proactively with the authorities information that they have observed. They might not have been asked for it yet, but it could be important or relevant to a police investigation. Part of, if you like, the duty of care of the tech companies should be to alert the relevant authorities to a problem when they see it and not wait to be asked as part of a formal investigation. Again, that sort of proactive intervention would be necessary.

I also share a general concern, in that I believe tech companies could do more to observe behaviour on their platforms that could lead to harm. That includes self-harm resulting from a vulnerable person accessing content that might lead them towards a pattern of self-harm. Indeed, one of the particular concerns that emerged from the Molly Russell case was the content she was engaging with on Instagram.

The companies should take a more proactive responsibility to identify people who share content that may lead to the radicalisation of individuals or encourage them to commit harmful acts against other citizens. I think the companies have the power to identify that sort of behaviour online, and there should be more of an obligation on them to share their knowledge of that content when they see it.

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Mr Gapes.

The Committee has produced an absolutely superb report—such detail—and it is to be welcomed. It raises serious issues in relation to the power of the platform providers, and their lack of usage of the powers they have to identify people and to do something with that information. That is very important. The Government should consider how to tackle the people who put this material on these platforms. We should get the providers to work through these issues with the Government and stop the false information that is being put up.

This issue affects huge numbers of people because, as the Chair of the Select Committee said, a lot of people take such information as gospel, as most of their media input is from social media, so it has a huge effect. I urge the Government to look at this issue seriously and to consider how we can push the social media platform providers to have a better response and remove false media reports that are put online.

[Damian Collins]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. One of the issues at the heart of this—it comes up again and again throughout our report—is the obligations of the tech companies. A social media platform is not necessarily the publisher of content; it has been posted there by a user of the platform. However, the social media company can observe everything that is going on and it curates the content as well.

When someone goes on social media, if they just saw what their friends had posted most recently, that would be one thing, but because social media algorithms direct users towards particular content, we are concerned not only that harmful content can exist, but that when individuals start to engage with it, they are directed to even more of it. I think that we should not only consider the responsibilities of the tech companies to remove harmful content when it is posted, but question the ethics of algorithms and systems that can direct people towards harmful content.

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on an excellent, wide-ranging and groundbreaking report, and I congratulate all the members and staff of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee on it. My hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara), who demonstrates great knowledge of and enthusiasm for this inquiry, asked me to make a few points.

The inquiry started an ongoing worldwide conversation about the threats posed by shadowy, unaccountable and anti-democratic forces. As I understand it, in February the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee hosted its first ever international grand committee, which included representatives of countries such as Canada, Ireland, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Singapore, France and Latvia. The Committee has also formed a new Sub-Committee as part of that international grand committee.

I recognise that it must have been difficult in a fast-moving environment to produce the formal report of an 18-month inquiry in such a timely fashion. I congratulate the Committee on establishing the Sub-Committee. Although the hon. Gentleman may already have answered this question, can he say exactly when the White Paper, which has been delayed repeatedly, will be published? Does he have any information on that White Paper that he could outline today?

[Damian Collins]

I have some information on that, but given that the Minister is here, I will leave it to her to respond. The official word is “imminently”, which I think means “very imminently”. We look forward to the White Paper; it is an important piece of work that I hope will lay the foundations for turning the work of our inquiry, and other work that the Government have done, into real policy. We could establish in this country a world-leading framework for dealing with these issues.

[The Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries (Margot James)]

Life in Parliament is full of surprises at the moment. I must confess that I had a complete misunderstanding about today’s hearing; I thought it was in the main Chamber. When I alighted on the Order Paper on my return from a meeting outside the House and saw that this hearing was absent from it, I thought that it must have been moved—along with so many other things in Parliament at the moment. That explains why I have no official documentation whatsoever.

However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) knows, this is my top priority across what is a very broad brief. I will therefore respond based on my own understanding, the excellent remarks that have been made by hon. Members, and of course the report of my hon. Friend’s Select Committee, which I read from cover to cover. I commend his work as Chairman, and all hon. Members who serve on that Committee, which exemplifies the power and potential that a Select Committee can bring to policy making. I am delighted to hear of the new development that my hon. Friend has announced: the Sub-Committee that he has set up specifically to tackle disinformation sounds like an excellent initiative.

I was delighted to hear that at the first meeting of that Sub-Committee, Members will be able to question and hear from the Information Commissioner, whose office is the leading data protection agency across Europe. That is partly because of the reputation of Elizabeth Denham, the commissioner; partly because of the huge additional resources that we have given the Information Commissioner’s Office; and partly because the office is leading on an investigation into the misuse of data, primarily by Facebook but by other platforms as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Gapes (in the Chair)]

That is fine, but we have limited time, because we have another statement and then a normal debate after that. Thank you very much. Damian Collins, did you wish to respond?

[Damian Collins]

I will respond briefly. To add to the Minister’s comments, we have all benefited enormously from the work of Elizabeth Denham and the ICO. It has demonstrated that it is one of the world-leading organisations in its field, and the fact that it has invested so much of its time into this area has helped enormously. This was an extremely long inquiry, and I place on record my thanks to all the Committee Clerks, particularly Chloe Challender the Committee Clerk and Josephine Willows the Committee specialist. They worked tirelessly, well above and beyond the call of duty, to support the Committee in its investigations.

The Minister has touched on some important issues. We discussed closed groups earlier, which are an important mechanism for allowing content to be shared virally and at great speed, particularly on Facebook. That sharing can be done not just through advertising, but through those closed groups. We know that social media platforms can observe what is going on in closed groups, and part of their responsibility should be to monitor that activity, particularly if those groups are being used to spread harmful content.

Encrypted media is also an important issue, and I have some concerns about the vision that Mark Zuckerberg has set out for Facebook, effectively bringing Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp together. If that means all content being shared through encrypted channels, it would give the platforms an excuse to say that, because they cannot see what is being shared, they have no responsibility for it. I do not think that is acceptable, especially when those platforms will be using data gathered about their users to help facilitate contact via encrypted channels, and will still have a good understanding of what is going on. That is why the idea of a regulatory system is such an important step forward. As we have seen from the way Ofcom works with broadcasters, we need a regulator that has statutory powers—the power to go in and investigate, with the backing of Parliament—and the flexibility to look at new challenges as they arise and establish new standards for what is a responsible, ethical and acceptable way of working.

Elsewhere in the world, encrypted channels are increasingly becoming the principal mechanism for sharing information in election campaigns, particularly WhatsApp in India and Brazil. In any country that has a smartphone-connected electorate—as so many countries now do —sharing of political information through encrypted media will be an increasingly big problem. In our report, we tried to address many of the issues that exist today, and there are things that we can get on and deal with now. However, we may look back in five years’ time and say that, even having done all those things, the challenge of responding to disinformation being spread through encrypted media is one we still have to crack. We cannot leave that challenge to the tech companies on their own; we cannot leave it to them to solve that problem for us. We need to establish a clear legal framework, whereby it is clear what duty of care and responsibility tech companies have to ensure that their technology is not abused by people who seek to do others harm.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I believe it is not what a company calls itself that matters, but what it does. What we will seek to do in the White Paper and anything that follows it is make sure that we can tackle the harms we define as in scope of that White Paper, wherever they may lie on the internet. I understand that the game the hon. Lady mentions has now been withdrawn; quite right too—I think all of us would have been horrified had any other course been taken.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree with the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee report that if social media platforms host harmful contact and fail to act against it, they should have liability for it?

[Jeremy Wright]

Again, my hon. Friend will have to wait for the detail of the White Paper, but I have made it, I hope, very clear, and am happy to make it clear again, that I believe that social media companies have responsibilities in this space. They should take those responsibilities seriously, and if they do not there should be consequences.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

The hon. Gentleman will be reassured to know that had that breach occurred since the Data Protection Act was put into law, the Information Commissioner’s Office would have had substantially increased additional powers to take measures to address it. The Government are investing almost £2 billion in cyber-security, and the National Cyber Security Centre is there to help individuals, Members of Parliament and businesses.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

Documents published last week by the Select Committee show that Facebook was offering privileged access to user data to some commercial partners without those users’ knowledge, and was cutting off some other companies’ access to data altogether. Does the Minister feel that this should be a matter of investigation not only for the Information Commissioner but for the competition authorities?

[Margot James]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I congratulate him and his Committee on the work that they have done. His exposure of the information that Facebook engineers have reported the mass harvesting of data since 2014 is certainly worthy of continuing investigation.

Fixed Odds Betting Terminals

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

No, I do not accept that it is negligence to take the approach we have taken. It would be negligent not to take into account all the relevant considerations in making this decision. I think I have been as clear as I can be: the profit margins of the betting companies are not one of the relevant considerations. However, it is appropriate for us to think about the economic impact of this decision on those who work in the high street and it is appropriate for us to think about the necessary notice to be given not just for the FOBT change, but for the remote gaming duty change. Although I entirely accept the hon. Gentleman’s passion on this. I know why he argues as he does. There is no monopoly in this House on compassion for those who suffer from problem gambling and its effects. We have had FOBTs in this country since the early 2000s and this is the Government who are taking action against them in order to make the substantive change that he and I will agree needs to be made.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that implicit in what he and the industry have said is that there has indeed been a direct correlation between FOBTs on the high street and the proliferation of betting shops on the high street? If this decision on the new £2 stake is to be delayed, will he ask the betting companies to make additional contributions to charities that work with gambling addiction and problem gambling from the additional profits they will make from that delay?

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry, but there is great pressure on time today because the House has decreed a 10 o’clock finish for substantive questions, so shorter questions and shorter answers are needed.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

Does the Minister accept, however, that Google is accepting ads through Viagogo agents that are in breach of consumer protection law and of Google’s own terms of service, and that it is effectively taking money through being party to a fraud by allowing those ads to run?

[Margot James]

I absolutely sympathise with my hon. Friend’s point of view. I have had discussions with Google on this very point. I think it is safe to say that we have a difference of view, but I remain optimistic that the search engines will comply with their own terms and conditions in the end.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

The hon. Gentleman raises serious issues of which I am aware. The Government will respond to the Select Committee report very shortly, and I can assure him that the Electoral Commission, the Information Commissioner’s Office and the Government will be looking very robustly at the evidence the Select Committee has provided.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

Following the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, the Minister will be aware that there are concerns that there may have been other data breaches affecting Facebook user data. These are currently being investigated by the company, but the company alone, and it is under no obligation at all to share the findings of those results. Does the Minister believe that it should be a matter for the regulators and the ICO to check that Facebook is doing its work properly?

[Margot James]

This is a live and ongoing independent investigation by the commissioner and a number of legal proceedings are under way. We continue to expect that all organisations, including Facebook, fully co-operate with the ICO.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tracey Crouch]

I had the good fortune of bumping into a senior member of Celtic in Parliament earlier this week and we had a brief discussion on Celtic. Both my officials and those from the SGSA have already visited the rail seating area at Celtic to see it in operation. It has not been without its problems and has been closed twice already during the last season because of fan behaviour, but we continue to look at the development of rail seating at Celtic.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

As the Minister knows, a growing number of clubs are calling for safe standing to be reviewed and reintroduced. Does she think this should now be not the matter of a blanket ban, but a matter for safety authorities, the fans and local authorities, and decided on a case-by-case basis?

[Tracey Crouch]

The Government are committed to the current policy on all-seater stadiums. For this to be different, legislative change would be required. We will have a longer debate on this matter on 25 June, when I am sure we will be able to have a much more engaged discussion on it.

--- Later in debate ---

The Attorney General was asked—

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

1. What steps the CPS is taking to improve the rate of prosecution for knife crime.

[Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)]

4. What steps the CPS is taking to improve the rate of prosecution for knife crime.

[The Solicitor General (Robert Buckland)]

The serious violence strategy, published on 9 April, sets out our response to serious violence, which includes knife crime. We will legislate to tighten the law in this area, and the Crown Prosecution Service continues to work with law enforcement agencies to tackle knife crime and other forms of serious violence.

[Damian Collins]

Following Donald Trump’s speech to the National Rifle Association, does the Solicitor General agree that the streets of London would be far more dangerous for communities if criminals and gang members were armed with automatic weapons rather than knives? Does he agree that while longer sentences for knife offenders are important, we also need to do more to understand the underlying causes of knife crime and gang violence?

[The Solicitor General]

My hon. Friend is right about the need to tackle the underlying reasons for knife crime, whether that is carried out by gangs or young people in isolation. That sort of work is far more valuable than attempts by the President of the United States to channel Sean Connery in “The Untouchables”.

Data Protection Bill [Lords]

Damian Collins Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

Of course, I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, and I am glad that he focused on local newspapers, because I referred to two changes. The first is the establishment of IPSO, which I believe in all serious respects is now compliant with what Lord Leveson wanted. The second is the complete change in the media landscape that has taken place in the last 10 years.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned the number of local newspapers that have gone out of business. We are seeing more continue to do so. There is likely to be further consolidation within the newspaper industry and the economics are steadily moving against newspapers. That is a real threat to democracy, because newspapers employ journalists who cover proceedings in courts, council chambers and, indeed, in this place. The big media giants who now have the power and influence—Google, Facebook and Twitter—do not employ a single journalist, so my right hon. Friend is absolutely right to have established the examination into the funding and future of the press. It is about looking forward, and that is where the House should be concentrating its efforts. It should not be looking backwards and going over again the events of more than 10 years ago; the world has changed almost beyond recognition.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

My Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee colleague, the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly)—I call him my hon. Friend—raised the recommendations of the Committee last year. One was that for IPSO to be considered compliant in any way with the spirit of Leveson, it should have a compulsory industry-funded arbitration scheme. While IPSO might not be perfect, does my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) agree that this is one of the most significant areas where IPSO has responded to pressure to try to make itself more compliant?

[Mr Whittingdale]

I agree very much with my hon. Friend. Indeed, I would have found it far harder to make the argument that IPSO was basically now compliant with Lord Leveson had it not introduced the scheme that is now in place. That was the biggest difference between the system as designed by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset in the royal charter and IPSO, and that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) said, has rightly been removed.

What we do in this debate is being watched around the world. This country is seen as a bastion of freedom and liberty, and a free press is an absolutely essential component of that. I say to those who are proposing these amendments: do not just listen to the newspaper industry, which is, as I say, united against this—that includes The Guardian, despite the efforts of Labour Front Benchers to somehow exclude them. Listen to the Index on Censorship, Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists—campaigning organisations that are fighting oppression of the press around the world. They say that if this House brings in this kind of measure, it would send a terrible signal to those who believe in a free press. I therefore hope that the amendments will be rejected.

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I am immensely worried about what will happen if that data adequacy agreement is delayed, and the Government should be much more worried than they appear to be about the consequences for our security and crime fighting if that data adequacy agreement is not secured. So I say to them: do not make it harder. Do not keep this exemption in the Bill. Remove it, not just for the sake of future security and crime co-operation, but for the sake of preventing more injustices like Windrush.

[Damian Collins]

The significance of the Bill and the importance of data and data protection to the economy and the whole of society is reflected in this debate. The fact that amendments have been tabled on Report through the work of three different departmental Select Committees shows how wide-ranging this issue is.

I principally want to talk about amendments 20 and 21, which stand in my name and those of other members of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee and which are addressed by Government amendments, too. Before I do so, I want to add that the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), made a very important point about the fact that some people—particularly those involved in immigration cases—may not have full access to the data rights enjoyed by others. If the Minister can provide any further clarification, I will be happy to give way before I move on.

[Margot James]

After the exchange I had with the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), I wanted to confirm that the Home Office will certainly not destroy any data for which there is still a legitimate and ongoing need not just for the Home Office but for data subjects.

[Damian Collins]

I am grateful to the Minister for that further clarification.

Amendments 20 and 21 get to the heart of an issue that has been raised by a number of Members, which is the power of the Information Commissioner to act in data investigations. The Minister, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) and others have referenced the Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal, which is a very good example of why these additional powers are needed. We raised that in the Select Committee with the Secretary of State. The Information Commissioner raised it with us and it was raised on the Floor of the House on Second Reading.

The ability to fine companies for being in breach of data rules is important, but what is most significant is that we get hold of the data needed by investigators, so that we understand who is doing what, how they are doing it and how wide-ranging this is. It is crucial that the Information Commissioner has the enforcement powers she needs to complete those investigations.

In the case of Cambridge Analytica, an information notice was issued by the Information Commissioner to that company to comply with requests for data and information. Not only did Cambridge Analytica not comply, but Cambridge Analytica and Facebook knew that. That information notice expired at 5 o’clock on the evening of the day when that deadline was set; it was the beginning of the week. Before the notice had expired and a warrant could even be applied for, Facebook had sent in its own lawyers and data experts to try to recover data that was relevant to the Information Commissioner’s request.

The Information Commissioner found out about that live on “Channel 4 News” and then effectively sent a cease and desist note to Facebook, telling it to withdraw its people. She might very well not have been made aware of what Facebook was doing that evening, and data vital for her investigation could have been taken out of her grasp by parties to the investigation, which would have been completely wrong. Not only did that happen—thankfully, Facebook stood down—but a further five days expired before a warrant could be issued—before the right judge in the right court had the time to grant the warrant to enable her to complete her work. We live in a fast-moving world, and data is the fuel of that fast-moving world, so we cannot have 19th or even 20th-century legal responses. We must give our investigatory authorities the powers they need to be effective, which means seizing data on demand, without notice, as part of an investigation, and having the ability to see how data is used in the workplace or wider environment.

The Government are bringing forward amendments, which I think have the support of the House, that will give us one of the most effective enforcement regimes in the world. They will give us the power to do something we have not been able to do before, which is to go behind the curtain to see what tech companies, even major tech companies, are doing and make sure they comply with our data rules and regulations. Without that or an effective power to inspect, we would largely be in the position of having to take their word for it when they said they were complying with the GDPR. Particularly with companies such as Facebook that run closed systems—they have closed algorithms and their data is not open in any way—there are very good commercial reasons for doing so, but there are also consumer safety reasons. We must have the power to go in and check what they are doing, so the amendments are absolutely vital.

There are further concerns. The shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, was right to raise concerns about honesty and transparency in political advertising. Both the Information Commissioner and the Electoral Commission are examining the use of data in politics, as well as looking at who places the ads. It is already a breach of the law in the UK, as it is in other countries, for people outside our jurisdiction to run political advertising during election campaigns in this country.

In the case of Facebook, it is unacceptable that its ad check teams have not spotted such advertising and stopped it happening when someone is breaking the law. If this were about the financial services sector, we would not let a company say, “Well, we thought someone was breaking the law, but we weren’t told to do anything about it, so we didn’t”. We would expect such a company to spot it and to take effective action. We need to see a lot more progress on this, particularly in relation to the placement of micro-targeting ads and dark ads. The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising has called for a moratorium on the micro-targeting of political ads, which may be seen only by the person who receives an ad and the person who places it.

When the chief technology officer of Facebook, Mike Schroepfer, gave evidence to the Select Committee, I asked him whether, if someone set up a Facebook page to run ads during a campaign and micro-targeted individual voters before taking down the page at the end of the campaign and destroying the adverts, Facebook would have any record that that advertising had ever run, he said that he did not know. We have written to him and Mark Zuckerberg saying that we need to know, because unless we know, a bad actor could run ads in huge volumes, investing a huge amount of money in breach of electoral law, and if they did not declare it, there would be no record of that advertising ever having been placed.

[Liam Byrne]

The Chair of the Select Committee is doing a brilliant job with his investigation, but the argument must stretch further than simply political advertising. For example, when Voter Consultancy Ltd ran attack ads against Conservative Members, accusing some of them of being Brexit mutineers, it was running an imprint for a company that was actually filing dormant accounts at Companies House. There are real questions not just about political ads in the narrow traditional sense, but about how to get to the bottom of who is literally writing the cheques.

[Damian Collins]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right and that throws up two really important points.

The first point is that the Information Commissioner is also currently investigating this, which links to the right hon. Gentleman’s point about where the money comes from and who the data controllers are in these campaigns. Although Facebook is saying that it will in future change its guidelines so that people running political ads must have their identity and location verified, we know that it is very easy for bad actors to fake those things. It would be pretty easy for anyone in the House to set up a Facebook page or account using a dummy email address they have created that is not linked to a real person, but is a fake account. This is not necessarily as robust as it seems, so we need to know who is running these ads and what their motivation is for doing so.

Secondly, the Information Commissioner is also looking at the holding of political data. It is already an offence for people to harvest and collect data about people’s political opinions or to target them using it without their consent, and it is an offence for organisations that are not registered political parties even to hold such data. If political consultancies are scraping data off social media sites such as Facebook, combining it with other data that helps them to target voters and micro-targeting them with messaging during a political campaign or at any time, there is a question as to whether that is legal now, let alone under the protection of GDPR.

As a country and a society, we have been on a journey over the past few months and we now understand much more readily how much data is collected about us, how that data is used and how vulnerable that data can be to bad actors. Many Facebook users would not have understood that Facebook not only keeps information about what they do on Facebook, but gathers evidence about what non-Facebook users do on the internet and about what Facebook users do on other sites around the internet. It cannot even tell us what proportion of internet sites around the world it gathers such data from. Developers who create games and tools that people use on Facebook harvest data about those users, and it is then largely outside the control of Facebook and there is little it can do to monitor what happens to it. It can end up in the hands of a discredited and disgraced company like Cambridge Analytica.

These are serious issues. The Bill goes a long way towards providing the sort of enforcement powers we need to act against the bad actors, but they will not stop and neither will we. No doubt there will be further challenges in the future that will require a response from this House.

[Brendan O'Hara]

I will be very brief, Madam Deputy Speaker, because we are incredibly tight for time.

There is so much in the Bill that I would like to talk about, such as effective immigration control, delegated powers and collective redress, not to mention the achievement of adequacy, but I will concentrate on amendment 5, which appears in my name and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) and the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas).

The amendment seeks to provide protection for individuals where automated decision making could have an adverse impact on their fundamental rights. It would require that, where human rights are or could be impacted by automated decisions, ultimately, there will always be a human decision maker at the end of the process. It would instil that vital protection of human rights in respect of the general processing of personal data. We believe strongly that automated decision making without human intervention should be subject to strict limitations to promote fairness, transparency and accountability, and to prevent discrimination. As it stands, the Bill provides insufficient safeguards.

I am talking about decisions that are made without human oversight, but that can have long-term, serious consequences for an individual’s health or financial, employment, residential or legal status. As it stands, the Bill will allow law enforcement agencies to make purely automated decisions. That is fraught with danger and we believe it to be at odds not just with the Data Protection Act 1998, but with article 22 of the GDPR, which gives individuals the right not to be subject to a purely automated decision. We understand that there is provision within the GDPR for states to opt out, but that opt-out does not apply if the data subject’s rights, freedoms or legitimate interests are undermined.

I urge the House to support amendment 5 and to make it explicit in the Bill that, where automated processing that could have long-term consequences for an individual’s health or financial, employment or legal status is carried out, a human being will have to decide whether it is reasonable and appropriate to continue. Not only will that human intervention provide transparency and accountability; it will ensure that the state does not infringe an individual’s fundamental rights and privacy—issues that are often subjective and are beyond the scope of an algorithm. We shall press the amendment to the vote this evening.

Cambridge Analytica: Data Privacy

Damian Collins Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to make a statement about the alleged breach of Facebook user data by Cambridge Analytica and the powers of the Information Commissioner to act in such cases.

[The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Matt Hancock)]

The revelation this weekend of a serious alleged privacy breach involving Facebook data is clearly very worrying. It is reported that a whistleblower told The Observer newspaper that Cambridge Analytica exploited the Facebook data of over 50 million people globally.

In our increasingly digital world, it is essential that people can have confidence that their personal data will be protected. The Information Commissioner, as the data regulator, is already investigating as part of a broader investigation into the use of personal data during political campaigns. The investigation is considering how political parties and campaigns, data analytics companies and social media platforms in the UK have used people’s personal information to micro-target voters. As part of the investigation, the commissioner is looking at whether Facebook data was acquired and used illegally. She has already issued 12 information notices to a range of organisations, using powers under the Data Protection Act 1998. It is imperative that when an organisation receives an information notice, it must comply in full. We expect all organisations involved to co-operate with this investigation in whatever way the Information Commissioner sees fit. I am sure that the House will understand that there is only so far I can go in discussing specific details of specific cases.

The appropriate use of data is important for good campaigning. Canvassing someone’s voting intention is as old as democracy itself. Indeed, we do it in the House every day. But it is important that the public are comfortable with how information is gathered, used and shared in modern political campaigns, and it is important that the Information Commissioner has the enforcement powers she needs. The Data Protection Bill, currently in Committee, will strengthen legislation around data protection and give her tougher powers to ensure that organisations comply. The Bill gives her the powers to levy significant fines for malpractice, of up to 4% of global turnover, on organisations that block the investigations by the Information Commissioner’s Office. It will enhance control, transparency and security of data for people and businesses across the country.

Because of the lessons learned in this investigation and the difficulties the Information Commissioner has had in getting appropriate engagement from the organisations involved, she has recently requested yet stronger enforcement powers. The power of compulsory audit is already in the Bill, and she has proposed additional criminal sanctions. She has also made the case that it has become clear that, in order to deal with complex investigations such as these, the power to compel testimony from individuals is now needed. We are considering those new proposals, and I have no doubt that the House will consider that as the Bill passes through the House.

Data, properly used, has massive value, and social media are a good thing, so we must not leap to the wrong conclusions and shut down all access. We need rules to ensure transparency, clarity and fairness, and that is what the Data Protection Bill will provide. After all, strong data protection laws give citizens confidence, and that is good for everyone.

[Damian Collins]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. Does he share my concern that an academic at the University of Cambridge, Aleksandr Kogan, was able to conduct surveys with 270,000 Facebook users, and from that was able to access the data of not just the people who completed those surveys but a greater number of accounts, totalling 50 million user profiles?

That information was then sold to Cambridge Analytica, despite Alexander Nix of Cambridge Analytica telling the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee that it had never received such data when he gave evidence to us, which the Committee will seek to pursue with him. That data was then used in campaigns. Facebook knew of that data breach for more than two years and did nothing to act against Cambridge Analytica. It only suspended Cambridge Analytica from the platform when it became clear that The Observer was going to expose this in its feature yesterday.

My first specific question for the Secretary of State and his Department, and by extension the Information Commissioner, is: will someone be contacting Cambridge University to ask what oversight there was of what Dr Kogan and his team were doing there in gathering this data in the first place?

There is an ethical issue here: data gathered in consumer surveys is being used by data analytics companies for political campaigns. No one ever gave consent for this information to be used in political campaigns in this way, and I think many people will be shocked at the way in which their personal data can be harvested so effectively and used in this way—and not by a registered political party, but simply by a data analytics consultancy.

Can the Secretary of State give users some heart by confirming that someone simply ticking a box on a long form on Facebook does not sign away their rights? Can he confirm that no company has the right to ask someone to sign away their rights under data protection legislation in this country, that it would not be enforceable if a company tried to do so and that people’s rights are still protected?

Does the Secretary of State believe there should be a broader investigation into Cambridge Analytica as a company, which many people are concerned is using many different shadow companies and identities to campaign around the world? Many people have raised concerns and questions not just about the way the company is using data but about its ethics and leadership in all aspects of its life.

I am pleased that the Secretary of State addressed the powers of the Information Commissioner. We raised that issue with him in Committee last week, and the Information Commissioner has also raised it. This incident shows that someone in this country needs to have the legal authority to go behind the curtain and look at the way in which the tech platforms and other companies that use data are using that data, to make sure they comply with UK data protection law.

When the Data Protection Bill is passed, we want to be confident that it is being enforced, that the conditions are being met and that big, powerful companies like Facebook cannot avoid compliance with UK data protection law. I am pleased that the Secretary of State raised that. The Committee, and I am sure the whole House, will take note of that on Report.

[Matt Hancock]

I start by paying tribute to the work of the Select Committee, as I have done from this Dispatch Box before. It is doing an incredibly important piece of work. Because of the sensitivities of this, in terms of its political nature and the impact on political campaigning, it is excellent that a cross-party group of MPs is leading work on this, and I pay tribute to Members on both sides of the House for their role in that. I remind them that they ultimately have the power of summons, if people are not giving them good enough answers.

I will ensure that we look into all the considerations my hon. Friend mentions. He raised a point about consent not just being given through a tick box, and this is directly addressed in the Data Protection Bill. Currently, because of the nature of the legislation—the 1998 Act is very old in digital terms—companies can get away with asking for a box to be ticked, even though many people do not read all the small print. The Data Protection Bill will replace the tick-box approach with a principles-based approach, which I think the whole House should support.

Finally, my hon. Friend asked about the powers of the Information Commissioner. He is absolutely right that we must, with the legislation before the House right now, ensure that we get the powers right so that the Information Commissioner can carry out an audit. Such a power is already in the Bill, but the question is whether there is a strong enough backstop for when people choose not to comply with an audit. At the moment, there is a very serious fine, but the question is whether the criminal penalties that can be imposed in some cases should be further strengthened. That detail is rightly being looked at in the discussions on the Data Protection Bill.

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[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

Like most people across the House, I was shocked to read the revelations in The Observer. This story is yet more evidence that the online political advertising market is growing exponentially and becoming more and more difficult to police. We are seeing Russian authorities purchasing political ads with extensive micro-targeting based on ill-gotten or unlawful user data. If left unregulated, this market will continue to be prone to deception and lacking in transparency. Urgent action is clearly required, so what plans do the Government have to take the required action?

Of course Cambridge Analytica and Facebook should be brought back to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee to explain their previous evidence, which is alleged to be simply false.

[Damian Collins]

They will be.

[Gavin Newlands]

I am pleased to hear that.

Lastly, there have been reports that the Conservative party has been in talks with Cambridge Analytica for some time. If that is true, how long have they been in talks and what did the party know about its dealings with Facebook? Do the Government plan to hold an inquiry? If so, is the Secretary of State worried about a conflict of interest, given the Conservative party’s plans to use Cambridge Analytica for its own benefit?