Data Protection Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

Darren Jones Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

I welcome new schedule 1, in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill and my hon. Friends the Members for Ogmore and for Sheffield, Heeley. I should declare that I was first on Facebook as a 19-year-old. Now, as a 31-year-old, I can declare that I do not think there is anything on there that I am embarrassed of.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Lucky you.

[Darren Jones]

I reserve the right for other hon. Friends to remove content from their social media.

I wanted to refer to the issue of data ownership. When we think of the world in terms of things that we own, there are legal bases for that ownership. We have a legal right to the houses that we buy, once the mortgage has been paid off, and we have a legal right to the clothes that we buy. However, we have no legal right to the ownership of the data about us or the data that we generate. In the context of people making money off the back of it, that feels fundamentally incorrect.

Even the language that we use suggests that the relationship is not balanced. The idea that Facebook is my data controller, and that I am merely its data subject, suggests that the tone of the conversation is incorrect. I support the fundamental principle of ownership, because I think that we need to have a much more fundamental debate about who owns this stuff. Why are people making money off the back of it? If they do things with our property that is against the law, or that incurs us a loss, we should have the right to enforce that principle.

We have seen that not just in the context of the personal data that we might create about the things we like to buy or the TV programmes we like to watch. Sir John Bell, in the report “Life sciences: industrial strategy”, talked about the value of NHS data. We are in a unique position in the world, because of our socialist healthcare system, where we have data for individuals in a large population across many years. That is extremely valuable to organisations and others. We on the Science and Technology Committee are doing reports at the moment on genomics data in the health service and on the regulation of algorithms. I recommend those reports, when they are published, to Members of the Bill Committee.

We need to try to avoid allowing, for example, health companies—I will not name any particular ones—to come into this country, access the data of NHS patients, build and train algorithms, and then take those algorithms to other parts of the world and make enormous profits off the back of them. But for the data that belongs to the British people, those businesses would not be able to make those profits.

[Colin Clark (Gordon) (Con)]

I am trying to follow the hon. Gentleman’s train of thought. As I understand it, we have the largest digital economy in the G20—it is 12.4% of our GDP. He and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill have experience of the industry. You do want to promote technology, as opposed to putting a thumb on it, don’t you?

[The Chair]

I don’t, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does. Well, I do actually.

[Darren Jones]

Then you agree with hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, Mr Streeter. Of course we do, but as we have seen this week with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, rules must be set, and there must be a balance between allowing innovation to flourish and people’s rights not to be harmed in the process.

[Margot James]

Quite. That is the basis of the Bill.

[Darren Jones]

I agree—that is why I welcome the Bill. I am saying that we ought to go further, which is why I support the new schedule, and having conversations about ownership.

Returning to the issue of health data, I have personal views about how we might tax revenues from platforms in a better way. I welcome the comments made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in line with his counterparts in Europe, about looking at how we tax revenues where they are made, not where the company is headquartered. That is a positive move, but surely if all this NHS data is creating profits for other companies and organisations, we can create a situation in which patients also benefit from that, by sharing in the profits that are made and by seeing value redirected into the health service.

All that becomes anchored in the question of ownership. There is still this legal space that says that data subjects do not own their own data. We need a much broader debate on that. [Interruption.] Members are shaking their heads. I am happy to take interventions, if Members would like.

[Liam Byrne]

Will my hon. Friend reflect on the idea that if someone is genuinely a popular capitalist and believes in the distribution of wealth as the basis of economic growth, then recognising and crystallising the value of personal data is actually pro-growth?

[Darren Jones]

I agree entirely. I confess I never got all the way through my version of Piketty, but the idea of value through assets, as opposed to through the stagnating wages in our economy today, plays into this conversation around data. People from poorer backgrounds may not inherit houses or land, but they create their own data every day. It is an asset that should belong to them. They should be able to share in its value when companies around the world are making enormous profits off the back of it. In this digital age, there is a huge call for equality of opportunity and equality of access. We need to try to get those right in these fundamental understandings of the digital market and the rights that exist around it.

Lastly, I encourage and strengthen my right hon. Friend’s arguments on the application of these principles to children. The Committee has already debated how parental consent is not needed after the age of 13. One of my early jobs as legal counsel at BT was the dubious task of consolidating terms and conditions. Hon. Members who are no doubt happy customers of BT, with perhaps broadband, TV and sport, would originally have had to read five or six different documents that were very long and complicated. I had to consolidate those. That was not good enough, so I commissioned a YouTube star to do a video, which can be seen on the terms and conditions page, to try to explain some of these things. Even for adults, this was a really hard and laborious task.

I am not saying that it is for Government to tell businesses how to communicate to children. Second Reading and some of the Committee’s debates show—dare I say it—that we are probably not best placed to have those conversations. However, it is really important that there is an expectation on businesses that they take steps to ensure that children are properly engaged and really understand what they are signing up to, especially as the Government have opted to go to the minimum age range for consent, going to 13.

I just wanted to re-emphasise the debate on ownership and on children. I support my right hon. Friend’s new schedule and new clauses, and I hope the Government will support them.