The Internet and Privacy

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend makes a good point which, although slightly different from what I am focusing on today, is relevant to the role of the internet. I think she will be pleased to hear what I say later in my remarks.

The time has come for the Government to set up a serious commission of inquiry composed of members who have expertise in civil liberties, the internet and commerce. The commission should suggest a new legal framework to redress the balance, giving citizens an affordable and speedy means of redress.

Perhaps the best means would be an internet Bill of Rights, which would give the citizen some notion of his rights. At first, such an internet Bill of Rights might be a semi-voluntary code, as currently proposed in Europe. The system would be self-regulating, in the same way as the British Medical Association can mediate over doctors’ behaviour, or the Law Society can judge legal practice. If an inquiry finds cases in which a company has infringed upon people’s privacy without their permission, perhaps there could be some sort of fine.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for securing this interesting debate. I am interested to hear how he develops some of his points.

The hon. Gentleman keeps talking about companies. Although he touched briefly on the role of the Government, would he not agree that, while infringement by companies is a serious problem, infringement by Governments—which has happened so often, through the former intercept modernisation programme, the Digital Economy Act 2010 and the huge amounts of data held by the Government—is at least as chilling, not least because so much more money and infrastructure back it up? How would he tackle that issue?

[Robert Halfon]

I was pleased to serve with my hon. Friend on the Public Bill Committee that considered the abolition of identity cards. He is also a huge defender of civil liberties, and has been so for many years. He is right, and raises an important subject, but one for another debate. Today, I am focusing specifically on the activities of internet companies and their role in curtailing our civil liberties.

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[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

It is a great privilege to be able to take part in this debate and, again, I congratulate the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on securing it. It is welcome and timely.

I have had an interest in the internet in many areas, politically as well as personally. Any combination of technology, commerce and civil liberties was always going to interest a Liberal science geek such as me.

As someone who is still new to Parliament, I have been shocked by the aversion that some hon. Members have to matters technological. There are a number of constraints on using tablets in the Chamber, and various other archaisms, which I hope, together with many other new Members, that we will be able to change. However, some of the aversion is due to the frustration of getting parliamentary hardware and software to work. Privacy is, though, something that Members should be concerned about, however technologically literate they are. It affects us and our constituents, who use the internet for all sorts of purposes. It affects businesses and how we interact with all those things.

Some first principles have been touched on, such as the balance between openness and transparency on the one hand and privacy on the other. One of the issues is about education—people who use things such as Facebook or Twitter do not understand what they are doing with their information. People giving information about their opinions on BT, available to the outside world and for BT to have a look at, is a perfectly valid choice. However, people should know that that is what they are doing, and they should be choosing to do so, rather than discovering that they have inadvertently done so without thinking about it.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

What about a health warning on Twitter? On cigarettes we have “Beware of death” or something. On Twitter we could have “Beware of giving too much information” in a big sign—it has got to be big—or something like that. Do those things exist and I just cannot see them because my eyesight is so poor?

[Dr Huppert]

“Excessive twittering may be bad for your future”—the problem would be fitting something into 140 characters. We can run out of space quickly. We need to have some way of educating people on the subject. That involves education in schools and, I am sure, the involvement of websites.

However, I am concerned about the idea of imposing draconian regulations on internet use. There is a balance. We know that it is hard to have regulations, with too many strict controls on what happens and what is done. I was recently with at least one other hon. Member in the Chamber on a trip to China, where we had some interesting discussions about the Chinese efforts to control what can and cannot be done on the internet. I am sure that we do not want to go down similar routes.

As the hon. Member for Harlow has already made clear, we cannot ignore those problems—they are affecting people and are doing so now. However, he did not mention a number of things. For example, the Firefox extension called Firesheep enables users to log into other people’s social networking accounts—I have not used it myself, I hasten to add.

As I mentioned in my intervention, the Government have a critical role. I am even more concerned about the Government’s ability to do such things. While we can argue about which is worse, there is no doubt that the Government should be seen to be leading the way in respecting citizens’ rights.

I was delighted to see in the coalition agreement the commitments to “roll back state intrusion” and “restore our civil liberties”. I suspect that many, if not all, of those in the Chamber today would agree. [Hon. Members: “There are no Labour MPs here.”] There is a Labour MP here—I am sure that he would support the coalition agreement on at least that point.

The welcome words in the agreement have to be matched by actions in Government. There are issues on which we have not done enough to reverse what happened under the previous Government and, in some cases, there is a risk that we will be worse.

The last Government had an extraordinary predilection for hugely costly and intrusive IT projects and policies—I was delighted to serve with the hon. Member for Harlow on the Identity Documents Bill Committee and I was pleased to hear that the only one of the cuts that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) said in an interview that he agreed with was getting rid of identity documents. I am delighted that the Labour party has finally come along to that sensible position.

I turn to a couple of things being driven by the Government that I believe interfere with privacy. The first is the Digital Economy Act 2010. I could talk for the remainder of this debate about some of the controversial aspects of the legislation, but I shall not detain the House as I assume that everyone is aware of the debate and the many issues raised. However, I draw attention to a case that was reported in July this year, after the Act was passed.

A woman received a letter from her internet service provider accusing her of downloading homosexual pornography illegally. That eventually resulted in her discovering that her son was gay. That is not the way that privacy should be broken; we can expect to see many more such cases if provisions of the Act are not substantially altered—or, as I would like to see, abolished. BT and TalkTalk attempted to secure a judicial review, which reveals that even industry heavyweights understand the problems caused by some aspects of the 2010 Act. If the offensive parts of the Act are not repealed, it is essential that they are significantly modified, by legislation or through the Ofcom code, so that ordinary criminal or civil procedures can be used; we already have procedures for dealing with theft.

I hope that the Government will avoid the general trend towards administrative systems laden with Executive involvement. What is the Minister’s current thinking on the 2010 Act? Will the Freedom Bill be able to stand for freedom in this area as well as in others? Will he confirm that the Government will not adopt a position in which internet users will be guilty until proven innocent, as the Act effectively demands?

I could speak about summary care records and the fact that the Government have failed to deliver what I believe was an important promise, and I can give examples of the consequences. Instead, I shall speak about the reported revival of the intercept modernisation programme, although I am sure that it will not be known by that name.

I remind the House that the IMP was an ambitious £2 billion project that would have forced ISPs to log clients’ internet and e-mail activity for at least 12 months. That, I believe, is a great infringement of privacy. Indeed, the coalition agreement explicitly stated that

“we will end the storage of Internet and email records without good reason”.

There is no doubt that we face threats from cyber-terrorism. Malicious breaches of security could cost the Government, businesses and individuals dearly in all sorts of ways. However, that does not give the Government the excuse to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

The significance of internet records in dealing with cyber-terrorism and other forms of terrorism requires some attention by the Government. That might be better achieved by service providers having to keep material for a set period rather than creating a vast Government warehouse of such material, or merely relying on how long it is convenient for the companies to keep it to suit their billing records.

[Dr Huppert]

Indeed. There are a number of ways to deal with genuine cyber-terror risks. Labour’s proposals certainly were excessive; it took a draconian and over-zealous approach.

I raised the matter yesterday in Prime Minister’s questions. I asked exactly what was happening about the intercept modernisation programme. He assured me that the Government were not planning a centralised database. I suggest that right hon. and hon. Members read exactly what he said. I am trying to give the Prime Minister and the Government the benefit of the doubt, but I am concerned about the careful choice of words. Does it have to be a centralised database to cause problems? Does it have to be a Government database to cause concern?

The original problem was that ISPs were storing the data. Hoping that the Prime Minister was being less than entirely clear, I asked some follow-up questions to establish what is being proposed, given the wording of the strategic defence and security review. The Government have to be better, and they can start by ruling out for good such a costly, over-broad and heavily intrusive approach. A minimal standard for data retention has to be the goal.

I understand that the Home Office is considering that data retention by ISPs should be based on an EU directive. If so, extremely stringent safeguards must be put in place. What discussions has the Minister had with the Home Office on the matter? Will he assure the House that Government intrusion into the privacy of individual internet users would happen only in the event of a serious threat to national security, that it would be regulated by the strictest possible safeguards, and that it would be subject to primary legislation so that Members of Parliament could consider what was proposed?

[Mr David Davis]

I am listening with fascination to the hon. Gentleman. He is exactly right in what he says; there will clearly be a need for a severe warrant in order to control what is done with privately held data by agencies of the state. However, that alone will not resolve the problem of having a big centralised database. The creation of a database can itself create a security hazard. A large quantity of data being held, even by one ISP, becomes a target for fraudsters, hackers and terrorists. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government should sort out that problem as well as the others?

[Dr Huppert]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. Wherever the data are kept, we would have to be most careful about their security. Some people would be interested to see it. For example, I can imagine that a number of people would pay considerable sums to gain access to the web and e-mail records of every Member of Parliament; we saw the excitement on expenses, and I am sure that it would be similar. Data like that must be treated as a great security risk, and that risk counterbalances much of the risk from cyber-attacks about which we hear so much.

I could talk about many other matters, but a number of Government Members wish to speak; the Opposition Benches are somewhat denuded. However, I wish to tell the House that I chair a Liberal Democrat policy working group that is writing a new policy on IT and IP matters, and we would welcome submissions from Members and from people across the country. We shall also be dealing with the party’s proposals on privacy. Indeed, members of the working group could have given a rather more detailed take on many of these matters. We clearly need to avoid the kind of lazy thinking that gives blanket solutions but ignores the need for privacy and liberty, and suggests draconian solutions that cause more problems than they solve.

I hope that my comments and those of others here today will give Ministers and others food for thought and that, together, we can work towards a balanced solution that preserves people’s reasonable privacy expectations.

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[Mike Weatherley]

Indeed, and to add to my hon. Friend’s point, the money that is being made is not finding its way to the owners of the creative works. Let me give a quick example from Spain, where there is a free-for-all internet culture. Various leading movie studios are actively considering banning DVD sales in that country. Sales of DVDs fell six times faster in Spain than in the rest of Europe. There were 2.4 billion unauthorised downloads of music and movies, which represents 50 downloads per Spaniard, which is just huge. Unfortunately, the UK is going in the same direction.

There must be reward for inventors and artists to enable those sectors to flourish. We cannot allow the UK music industry to be decimated. I have submitted some parliamentary written questions to discover just how important our overseas earnings from music are to our economy, and to find out how many jobs are involved. I do not need the reply to know that the figure is very high indeed.

The Digital Economy Act 2010, which has been referred to, has started to recognise the problem, and the Gowers report made a firm commitment to protecting copyright owners. However, favourable reports will not save the situation if there is not some control of the internet by a responsible governing body that looks out for the interests of creative individuals. The Digital Economy Act has flaws, and the appeals process is one such flaw. However, what the Act does is enshrine the right of individuals not to have their works stolen. I therefore commend my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow for initiating this debate.

[Dr Huppert]

I suspect that we need to talk further about the interpretation of the Digital Economy Act 2010. I am glad that my hon. Friend accepts that it has flaws. Does he not accept that there is already provision in law for people not to have items stolen? There is a huge amount of legislation covering theft, fraud and all sorts of other issues, and my hon. Friend is in danger of saying, “We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.”

[Mike Weatherley]

I thank my hon. Friend for making his point. None the less, the view from the UN internet governance forum, which was attended by representatives from around the world, was that the internet cannot be controlled, and so everything should go free. We have heard today that that is simply unacceptable and that there is scope for legislation.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow for initiating the debate, and urge all parliamentarians to get behind moves to ensure that our personal freedoms are not eroded by those taking advantage of this rapidly changing medium. They should support legislation and committees and call for proper regulation across the board. They may temper that regulation so that we have only what is necessary, because we do not want strangulation by regulation. It is a difficult line, but one that we must get right—and quickly.

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[Chris Kelly]

Absolutely. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I will talk about locking routers very shortly. His point is very valid.

[Dr Huppert]

One thing that has been very good has been the expanse of wi-fi that has become available, which encourages people to use open networks. How will the hon. Gentleman fit that development into his proposals?

[Chris Kelly]

Again, I will touch on that issue very shortly. We all go to coffee shops and the like that have unsecure networks, and of course there is an element of choice in doing so. However, people in their private homes need to be aware that it is possible to lock their routers, and people need more education about that option. That is probably a job in the first place for the providers of the broadband services.