Data Protection Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Knight of Weymouth and Baroness Kidron

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 6th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, does the Minister agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that PSHE would be the most appropriate way to educate young people about data rights? If so, I note that the Secretary of State, Justine Greening, has today announced that Ian Bauckham will lead the review on how relationship and sex education for the 21st century will be delivered. Can the Minister, who is clearly prepared to think about this appointment today, ask whether it is within his scope to think about how data rights education may be delivered as part of that review, and whether the review will draw on the work of the previous person who reviewed the delivery of PSHE, Sir Alasdair Macdonald, the last time Parliament thought that compulsory SRE was a good idea?

[Baroness Kidron]

I support the amendment. I was on the House of Lords Communications Committee, to which the noble Lord just referred. We recommended that digital literacy be given the same status as reading, writing and arithmetic. We set out an argument for a single cross-curricular framework of digital competencies—evidence-based, taught by trained teachers—in all schools whatever their legal status.

At Second Reading, several noble Lords referred to data as the new oil. I have been thinking about it since: I am not so certain. Oil may one day run out; data is infinite. What I think we can agree is that understanding how data is gathered, used and stored, and, most particularly, how it can be harnessed to manipulate both your behaviour and your digital identity, is a core competency for a 21st-century child. While I agree with the noble Lord that the best outcome would be a single, overarching literacy strategy, this amendment would go some small way towards that.