Terrorism Act 2000 (Video Recording with Sound of Interviews and Associated Code of Practice) (Northern Ireland) Order 2020

Lord Wei Excerpts

Friday 10th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wei (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I too thank my noble friend the Minister for his clear explanation of this instrument and broadly welcome it. Frankly, it is a bit of a shame that the police in Northern Ireland have had to rely on VHS tapes and outdated technology. It also saddens me that this matter could not have dealt with more from within Northern Ireland, for all the reasons that other Members have spoken about.

I will focus primarily on the technological side, an area I declare certain interests in more broadly. Having sat in on a case at the Old Bailey in which the poor use of technology—or the lack of the right evidence gathered in the right way using technology—led to the collapse of a drug-dealing case, I am well aware of the challenges that can arise from both the poor use and misuse of technology.

I have some questions for the Minister, first—to echo a previous speaker—on the training that will be provided on all this, both in the interview room and afterwards. On the use of the data, I am keen to know the ethical guidelines being adhered to. We now know that as crime and terrorism become more technologically advanced, there are increasing risks around hacking and the failure of encryption, which may be only a few years away because of the computing power that is now available and soon will be available. That will potentially lead to fake evidence being created, evidence being stolen or doctored or, possibly worse, profiles being generated of suspects that track their movement in the room or their facial expressions and emotions. That could be used for positive policing but could also be against people’s rights. What guidelines are being adhered to? The previous speaker mentioned vagaries around the use of the data, which for various terrorism-prevention reasons could be used along some of the lines I have described.

The security of the data is also very important, and I would like to ask a final question—if the Minister does not have time to answer, a letter would be fine—around the use of blockchain and ledger technologies to watermark the videos, so that they could not be doctored because each would have a unique online identity. It is time we moved not just from VHS to recording in digital form, but actually kept pace with technology a step further. I would like to hear the Minister’s thoughts on this.