Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
John Nicolson
Main Page: John Nicolson (Scottish National Party - Ochil and South Perthshire)Department Debates - View all John Nicolson's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(4 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Whittingdale
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the GDPR has ensured that we have high standards and, as I say, we are absolutely committed to maintaining them. We have no intention of diverging substantially from GDPR, but obviously we will be looking to see whether there are ways in which we can improve our regime while maintaining those high standards.
John Nicolson (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP) [V]
The independent Information Commissioner recently revealed that the Conservative party had racially and religiously profiled 10 million voters at the last election. I was shocked to learn that it did this by buying data that
“identified a person’s…ethnic origin and religion based on their first and last name.”
Can the Minister explain to the House why his party does this?
Mr Whittingdale
As I recall, the Information Commissioner examined the practices of all political parties and made comments against all of them. However, it did not find that any breaches of the law had occurred.