Data Protection Bill [HL]

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pity I have to be brief, but I will try. The amendment is interesting and worth debating in greater detail than the time today allows. Remarks have already been made about the report from the Royal Society and the British Academy, which suggested setting up a body but did not define whether it ought to be statutory. It is a pity it did not because, if it had, perhaps the Government would have taken greater notice of the suggestion and taken on board what pages 81 and 82 of their manifesto said that they would do—set up a commission.

To me, there are three important things for any body that is set up. First, it must articulate and provide guidance on the rules, standards and best practices for data use, ideally covering both personal and non-personal data. I see this amendment as restrictive in that area. Secondly, it must undertake horizon scanning to identify potential ethical, social and legal issues emerging from new and innovative uses of data, including data linkage, machine learning and other forms of artificial intelligence, and establish how these should be addressed. Thirdly, and importantly, it should be aligned with, and not duplicate, the roles of other bodies, including the ICO as the data protection regulator and ethics committees making decisions about particular research proposals using people’s data. This important amendment allows us to discuss such issues and I hope we will return to it and perhaps make it wider.

Is such a body necessary? The debates we have had suggest that it might be. The Nuffield Foundation was mentioned. It has suggested that it will set up an ethics commission, and we need to know what the purpose of that will be. What would its role be in the regulatory framework, because it would not be a statutory body? I look forward to that debate but, in the meantime, I support the amendment.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment and its very simple principle. We live in a complex world and this tries to lay rules on a complex system. The trouble is that rules can never work because they will never cover every situation. You have to go back to the basic principles and ethics behind what is being done. If we do not think about that from time to time, eventually the rules will get completely out of kilter with what we are trying to achieve. This is essential.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, clearly the Royal Society has been talking to other people. I hope that someone from there is listening and will be encouraged to talk to me too. I am delighted with this amendment and think it is an excellent idea, paired with Amendment 77A, which gives individuals some purchase and the ability to know what is going on. Here we have an organisation with the ability to do something about it, not by pulling any levers but by raising enough of a storm and finding out what is going on to effect change. Amendments 77A and 78A are a very good answer to the worries we have raised in this area.

It is important that we have the ability to feel comfortable and to trust—to know that what is going on is acceptable to us. We do not want to create divisions, tensions and unhappiness in society because things are going on that we do not know about or understand. As the noble Lord said, the organisations running these algorithms do not share our values—it is hard to see that they have any values at all other than the pleasures of the few who run them. We should not submit to that. We must, in all sorts of ways, stand up to that. There are many ways in which these organisations have an impact on our lives, and we must insist that they do that on our terms. We are waking up quite slowly. To have a body such as this, based on principles and ethics and with a real ability to find out what is going on, would be a great advance. It would give me a lot of comfort about what is happening in this Bill, which otherwise is just handing power to people who have a great deal of power already.