Public Authorities: Algorithms

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am not an expert, but I am sure that the noble Lord can go back to his school days and remember from his study of Greek that Euclid was producing algorithms in 300 BC —he will remember that this was for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers. Essentially, an algorithm is a set of rules that precisely defines a sequence of operations. Today, they are used mainly by computers for calculations, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, clearly, I must voice the general opinion expressed in other ways in appreciation of the Minister’s reply to a very pernickety noble friend of his, who is sitting on the Bench behind him. We have heard reports of information that will come from the data ethics people in the summer, and we have a White Paper on online harms coming very soon and then a period of consultation. I always seem to be stuck at the Dispatch Box acknowledging that the answer to the question I really want to ask will come in months’ or perhaps years’ time. The noble Lord who put the question is quite right: things are happening in the field of technology now, with all those local councils and police forces using algorithms to forecast possible courses of action and take policy decisions in light of what they think will happen. We are told that consultative experiences are about to happen, but is it “when” or “if”? It would be good if the Minister could somehow bypass or short-circuit the labyrinthine things that are happening elsewhere and give us some reassurance that certification for things which are already happening in the field and shaping our future can be looked at critically.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

It is not completely fair to say that nothing has happened. In areas where personal data is used, for example, that has to be used lawfully under the aegis of the Data Protection Act. The Information Commissioner recently said that she was minded to issue guidelines on the use of data in respect of children. The Information Commissioner is a powerful regulator who is looking at the use of personal data. We also have the Digital Economy Act, and we have set up the Data Ethics Framework, which allows public bodies to use the data which informs algorithms in a way that is principled and transparent. Work is going on, but I take the noble Lord’s point that it has to be looked at fairly urgently.