The Internet and Privacy

Eric Joyce Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lucas]

That may be the case. We can discuss it as the conversation continues beyond this debate. The hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker), who is no longer in his place—he seems to have disappeared—pointed out a moment ago that information belongs to the individuals who give it in the first place. That is a strong point.

Part of the problem with the issue is that when people use their computers—this certainly applies to me; I am not a geek of the type described by the hon. Member for Cambridge—it does not always occur to them that they are passing on to a third party which books they like or what articles they are interested in. I think that most people are in that position. They concentrate on what they are using the internet for, and it is incidental to them that that information is being secured by a third party. I think that they would be shocked to learn that it was being traded for marketing purposes. The difficulty is that that process is already happening, because people are using the internet and have been for such a long time.

[Eric Joyce (Falkirk) (Lab)]

Is what my hon. Friend has just described not simply a corollary? Someone goes along with their credit card to buy a product and the information is known to Experian, which sells that information. Is it not just a case of people transferring their behaviours online? We are talking about the same stuff. We should perhaps not be too afraid of the fact we are behaving the same way on the internet as we would otherwise behave with our credit cards.

[Ian Lucas]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend is here; he is absolutely right. I feel slightly uneasy about such marketing—perhaps I am old-fashioned in that regard. What my hon. Friend mentioned is another reason to go wider in dealing with the matter. Rather than simply focusing on the internet, we need to consider how information about individuals is collected and used by third-party organisations. The primary purpose of, for example, a credit card is to buy something, not to give information to a third party. I think that someone said earlier that we need to educate the general public much more about the use of information, what is involved in the use of the internet and what information is being given to third parties. That is extremely important.

It is crucial that we give intense consideration to where we are. We need to consult widely with the industry, the internet service providers, the internet companies and the general public about how we deal with this difficult problem. People need to know much more about the scale of the information they are retaining and why it is being retained. I was slightly surprised by the hon. Member for Harlow talking about the extent of the information that Google has and the fact it has not given it to third parties. Why is it retaining that information, particularly when it seems to be very valuable? The exposition on marketing from the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) was very useful in that regard. The hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) said that the value of the internet is £100 billion in the UK, so we are talking about massive stakes.

What has come out of the debate is that we need to have a very wide discussion and recognise that private organisations must be scrutinised in exactly the same way and to the same extent as governmental organisations. We have got ourselves into a very serious situation. We have heard about different approaches from hon. Members today and, although shades of different views have been expressed this afternoon, there is recognition across the House that we need to get to grips with the issue. We are not talking about a partisan matter in the same way that some civil liberty issues have been partisan in the past decade.

We have made a very good start on dealing with the matter today, but we need to make further progress. The type of commission that the hon. Member for Harlow mentioned would be a good start, but we must ensure that it consults as widely as possible. An important role of that commission should be to publicise to individuals not just in the UK, but across the world the extent of the information concerning them that is being obtained by these very large—in many cases, multinational—companies.

Collectively, we can deal with the issue. It may be that we can do so through some form of self-regulation. That has the advantage of being applicable across the world, if we can get the biggest companies to buy into such a system. If we cannot do that, it will be a very serious matter. The privacy and liberties of individuals are extremely important and, if required, we need to put in place a system of legislation to ensure that their rights are protected.