Electoral Commission: Data Breaches

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I do not have available any commercial information. It would be a matter for the Electoral Commission, and no doubt there is some information in its annual report. I am afraid I am new to this subject, but legislation sets out which individuals and organisations are entitled to receive copies of the open electoral register from local authorities. The commission, of course, uses the register for various purposes because it is a regulator. There are other organisations, as the noble Lord suggested, such as credit reference agencies, political parties and the Office for National Statistics—which does such an important job—which are entitled to receive copies of the register.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Elections Act extended voting rights to overseas citizens for their lifetimes. As it is implemented it will have to rely on a great deal of electronic communication, as the postal service will be far too slow. Have the Government considered that this lays our electoral records more easily open to hacking? Has thought been given to the problems of managing a system such as this? We want a great deal more people who live in distant countries to vote, but the time allowed in the electoral campaign for that will be very difficult to manage without the use of electronic systems.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

Preventing interference in future UK elections is an absolute priority for the Government—we have to protect our democratic processes. The Government have set up a Defending Democracy Taskforce to drive forward work to protect UK democratic processes, which I hope will be of some comfort to the noble Lord. The taskforce works across government and with Parliament, the intelligence communities, the devolved Administrations, local authorities, the private sector and civil society—a whole of society approach. It has recently set up a new enduring election security capability: the joint election security and preparedness unit. This will make sure that we are fully prepared for the next general election and that there are not attacks on the integrity of our systems.