Data Protection and Digital Information Bill

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 29th November 2023 Commons Chamber

On the whole, there is far too much in the Bill, and far too little time to interrogate it all properly. Removing some of the most pernicious clauses or making amendments here and there would fundamentally do little to reduce the many risks that the Bill presents to individuals’ rights to privacy and to have their data protected from prying eyes—in Government or elsewhere—and the costs and pressures on businesses and third-sector organisations trying to comply with the regime. The Government have tabled significant new powers at the last minute through new clauses and schedules that, by definition, cannot have had the scrutiny they deserve. As such, although in principle we can support sensible amendments from both sides of the House, we will oppose many of the Government’s new clauses and schedules, and—especially given that the House has decided not to recommit the Bill for further scrutiny—I expect we will also oppose it on Third Reading.

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Members who have spoken in this very important debate. I declare an interest: I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on digital identity, so I have a particular interest in the ramifications of data as it relates to identity, but also in wider concepts—some of which we have heard about today—such as artificial intelligence and how our data might be used in the future.

I share quite a lot of the concerns that we have heard from both sides of the House. There is an awful lot more work to be done on the detail of the Bill, thinking about its implications for individuals and businesses; how our systems work and how our public services interact with them; and how our security and police forces interact with our data. I hope that noble Members of the other place will think very hard about those things, and I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister will meet me to discuss some of the detail of the Bill and any useful new clauses or amendments that the Government might introduce in the other place. I completely agree that we do not have much time today to go through all the detail, with a substantial number of new clauses having been added in just the past few days.

I will speak specifically to some of the amendments that stand in my name. Essentially, they are in two groupings: one group deals with the operations of the trust framework for the digital verification service, which I will come back to, and the other general area is the Henry VIII-style powers that the Bill gives to Ministers. Those powers fundamentally alter the balance that has been in place since I was elected as a Member of Parliament in terms of how individuals and their data relate to the state.

On artificial intelligence, we are at a moment in human evolution where the decisions that we make—that scientists, researchers and companies make about how they use data—are absolutely fundamental to the operation of so many areas of our lives. We need to be incredibly careful about what we do to regulate AI and think about how it operates. I am concerned that we have large tech companies whose business model for decades has been nothing other than to use people’s data to create products for their own benefit and that of their shareholders. During the passage of the Online Safety Act 2023, we debated very fully in this House what the implications of the algorithms they develop might be for our children’s health, for example.

I completely agree with the Government that we should be looking for ways to stamp out fraud, and should think about how harms of various kinds are addressed. However, we need to be mindful of the big risk that fears and beliefs that are not necessarily true about different potential harms might lead us to regulate, or to guide the operations of companies and others, in such a way that we create real problems. We are talking about very capable artificial intelligence systems, and also about artificial intelligence systems that claim to be very capable but are inherently flawed. The big tech companies are almost all championing and sponsoring large language models for artificial intelligence systems that are trained on data. Those companies will lobby Ministers all the time, saying, “We want you to enable us to get more and more of people’s data,” because that data is of business value to them.

Given the Henry VIII powers that exist in the Bill, there is a clear and present danger that future Ministers— I would not cast aspersions on the current, eminent occupant of the Front Bench, who is a Wykehamist to boot—may be tempted or persuaded in the wrong direction by the very powerful data-generated interests of those big tech firms. As such, my amendments 278 and 279 are designed to remove from the Bill what the Government are proposing: effectively, that Ministers will have the power to totally recategorise what kinds of data can legitimately be shared with third parties of one kind or another. As I mentioned, that fundamentally changes the balance between individuals and the state.

Through amendment 280 and new schedule 3, I propose that when Ministers implement the trust framework within the digital verification service, that framework should be based on principles that have been accepted for the eight years since I was elected—in particular, those used by the Government in establishing the framework around its Verify online identity service for public services. That framework should be used in the context of the Bill to think about what decision-makers should be taking into account. It is a system of principles that has been through consultation and has been broadly accepted. It is something that the ICO accepts and champions, and it would be entirely right and not at all a divergence from our current system to put those principles in place.

What I would say about the legitimate interest recognition extension—the Henry VIII power—is that there are already indications in the Bill about what will be recategorised. It gives an idea of just how broad the categorisations could be, and therefore how potentially dangerous it will be if that process is not followed or is not correctly framed—for example, in relation to direct marketing. Direct marketing can mean all sorts of things, but it is essentially any type of direct advertising in any mode using personal data to target advertising, and I think it is really dangerous to take such a broad approach to it.

Before companies share data or use data, they should have to think about what the balance is between a legitimate interest and the data rights, privacy rights and all the other rights that people may have in relation to their data. We do not want to give them a loophole or a way out of having to think about that. I am very pro-innovation and pro-efficiency, but I do not believe it is inefficient for companies and users or holders of data to have to make those basic balancing judgments. It is no skin off their nose at all. This should be something we uphold because these interests are vital to our human condition. The last thing we want is an artificial intelligence model—a large language model—making decisions about us, serving us with things based on our personal data and even leaking that personal data.

I highlight that only yesterday or the day before, a new academic report was produced showing that some of the large language models were leaking personal data on which they had been trained, even though the companies say that that is impossible. The researchers had managed to get around the alignment guardrails that these AI companies said they had in place, so we cannot necessarily believe what the big tech companies say the behaviour of these things is going to be. At the end of the day, large language models, which are just about statistics and correlations, cannot tell us why they have done something or anything about the chain of causality behind such a situation, and they inherently get things wrong. Anyone making claims that they are reliable or can be relied on to handle personal data is, I think, completely wrong. I hope that noble Lords and Ladies will think carefully about that matter and re-table amendments similar to mine.

New clause 27 and the following new clauses that the Government have tabled on interface bodies show the extent to which these new systems—and decisions about new systems—and how they interface with different public services and other bodies are totally extensible within the framework of the Bill, without further regard to minorities or to law, except in so far as there may be a case for judicial review by an individual or a company. That really is the only safeguard that there will be under these Henry VIII clauses. The interface body provisions talk about authorised parties being able to share data. We have heard how the cookie system is very bad at the moment at effectively reflecting what individuals’ true preferences might or might not be about their personal data. It is worth highlighting the thoughtful comments we heard earlier about ways in which people can make more of a real-time decision about particular issues that may be relevant to them, but about which they may not have thought at all when they authorised such a decision in a dark or non-thinking moment, often some time before.

Online Safety Bill

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Legislating in an online world is incredibly complex and full of pitfalls, because the digital world moves so fast that it is difficult to make effective and future-proof legislation. I do not want to wind up my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) by mentioning Europe, but I am proud to have worked alongside other British MEPs to introduce the GDPR, which the tech companies hated—especially the penalties.

The GDPR is not perfect legislation, but it fundamentally transformed how online actors think about the need to protect personal data, confidentiality and privacy. The Bill can do exactly the same and totally transform how online safety is treated, especially for children. I have been a proud champion of the Internet Watch Foundation for more than a decade and I have worked with it to tackle the hideous sexual abuse of children online. As a children’s Minister during the Bill’s passage, I am aware of the serious harms that the online world can and does pose, and I am proud that Ministers have put protecting children at the front of the Bill.

Along with other hon. Members, I have signed new clause 2. If, God forbid, hospital staff were constantly and repeatedly causing harm to children and the hospital boss was aware of it but turned a blind eye and condoned it, we would all expect that hospital boss to end up in the courts and, if necessary, in prison. Tech bosses should have the same. I thank the Government for saying that they will go along with the Irish style legislation here, and I look forward to their doing so.

My amendments—amendment 83 and new clause 8, which was not in scope—relate to eating disorders. Amendment 83 is intended to make it very clear that eating disorders should be treated as seriously as other forms of self-harm. I would like to thank everybody in the Chamber who spoke to me so kindly after I spoke in the last debate about my own experience as a former anorexic and all those outside the Chamber who have since contacted me.

Anorexia is the biggest killer of all mental illnesses. It is a sickness that has a slow and long-burning fuse, but all too often that fuse is deadly. There has been a terrifying rise in the number of cases, and it is very clear that social media posts that glamorise eating disorders are helping to fuel this epidemic. I am talking not about content that advertises a diet, but egregious content that encourages viewers to starve themselves in some cases—too many cases—to death. Content promoting eating disorders is no less dangerous than other content promoting other forms of self-harm; in fact, given the huge numbers of people suffering from eating disorders—about 1.25 million people in this country—it may be considered the most dangerous. It is dangerous not only for children, but for vulnerable adults.

My amendment, as I have said, endeavours to make it clear that content promoting eating disorders should be treated in the same way and as seriously as content promoting other forms of self-harm. I thank all those who signed it, including former Health Ministers and Digital Ministers, the current Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) and the current and former Chairs of the Women and Equalities Committee, my right hon. Friends the Members for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) and for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller). I hope the fact that MPs of such experience have signed these amendment sends a clear message to those in the other place that we treat this issue very seriously.

My amendment 83 is not the clearest legal way in which to manage the issue, so I do not intend to press it today. I thank the Secretary of State, the Minister responsible for the Bill and the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), who I know want to move on this, for meeting me earlier today and agreeing that we will find a way to help protect vulnerable adults as well as children from being constantly subjected to this type of killing content. I look forward to continuing to work with Ministers and Members of the other place to find the best legally watertight way forward.

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), who made a very powerful speech, and I completely agree with her about the importance of treating eating disorders as being of the same scale of harm as other things in the Bill.

I was the media analyst for Merrill Lynch about 22 years ago, and I made a speech about the future of media in which I mentioned the landscape changing towards one of self-generated media. However, I never thought we would get to where it is now and what the effect is. I was in the Pizza Express on Gloucester Road the other day at birthday party time, and an 11-year-old boy standing in the queue was doomscrolling TikTok videos rather than talking to his friends, which I just thought was a really tragic indication of where we have got to.

Digital platforms are also critical sources of information and our public discourse. Across the country, people gather up to 80% of information from such sources, but we should not have trust in them. Their algorithms, which promote and depromote, and their interfaces, which engage, are designed, as we have heard, to make people addicted to the peer validation and augmentation of particular points of view. They are driving people down tribal rabbit holes to the point where they cannot talk to each other or even listen to another point of view. It is no wonder that 50% of young people are unhappy or anxious when they use social media, and these algorithmic models are the problem. Trust in these platforms is wrong: their promotion or depromotion of messages and ideas is opaque, often subjective and subject to inappropriate influence.

It is right that we tackle illegal activity and that harms to children and the vulnerable are addressed, and I support the attempt to do that in the Bill. Those responsible for the big platforms must be held to account for how they operate them, but trusting in those platforms is wrong, and I worry that compliance with their terms of service might become a tick-box absolution of their responsibility for unhappiness, anxiety and harm.

What about harm to our public sphere, our discourse, and our processes of debate, policymaking and science? To trust the platforms in all that would be wrong. We know they have enabled censorship. Elon Musk’s release of the Twitter files has shown incontrovertibly that the big digital platforms actively censor people and ideas, and not always according to reasonable moderation. They censor people according to their company biases, by political request, or with and on behalf of the three-letter Government agencies. They censor them at the behest of private companies, or to control information on their products and the public policy debate around them. Censorship itself creates mistrust in our discourse. To trust the big platforms always to do the right thing is wrong. It is not right that they should be able to hide behind their terms of service, bury issues in the Ofcom processes in the Bill, or potentially pay lip service to a tick-box exercise of merely “having regard” to the importance of freedom of expression. They might think they can just write a report, hire a few overseers, and then get away scot-free with their cynical accumulation, and the sale of the data of their addicted users and the manipulation of their views.

The Government have rightly acknowledged that addressing such issues of online safety is a work in progress, but we must not think that the big platforms are that interested in helping. They and their misery models are the problem. I hope that the Government, and those in the other place, will include in the Bill stronger duties to stop things that are harmful, to promote freedom of expression properly, to ensure that people have ready and full access to the full range of ideas and opinions, and to be fully transparent in public and real time about the way that content is promoted or depromoted on their platforms. Just to trust in them is insufficient. I am afraid the precedent has been set that digital platforms can be used to censor ideas. That is not the future; that is happening right now, and when artificial intelligence comes, it will get even worse. I trust that my colleagues on the Front Bench and in the other place will work hard to improve the Bill as I know it can be improved.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

I strongly support the Bill. This landmark piece of legislation promises to put the UK at the front of the pack, and I am proud to see it there. We must tackle online abuse while protecting free speech, and I believe the Bill gets that balance right. I was pleased to serve on the Bill Committee in the last Session, and I am delighted to see it returning to the Chamber. The quicker it can get on to the statute book, the more children we can protect from devastating harm.

I particularly welcome the strengthened protections for children, which require platforms to clearly articulate in their terms of service what they are doing to enforce age requirements on their site. That will go some way to reassuring parents that their children’s developing brains will not be harmed by early exposure to toxic, degrading, and demeaning extreme forms of pornography. Evidence is clear that early exposure over time warps young girls’ views of what is normal in a relationship, with the result that they struggle to form healthy equal relationships. For boys, that type of sexual activity is how they learn about sex, and it normalises abusive, non-consensual and violent acts. Boys grow up into men whose neural circuits become habituated to that type of imagery. They actually require it, regardless of the boundaries of consent that they learn about in their sex education classes—I know this is a difficult and troubling subject, but we must not be afraid to tackle it, which is what we are doing with the Bill. It is well established that the rise of that type of pornography on the internet over time has driven the troubling and pernicious rise in violence against women and girls, perpetrated by men, as well as peer-on-peer child sexual abuse and exploitation.

During Committee we had a good debate about the need for greater criminal sanctions to hold directors individually to account and drive a more effective safety culture in the boardroom. I am proud to serve in the Chamber with my hon. Friends the Members for Stone (Sir William Cash) and for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates). I have heard about all their work on new clause 2 and commend them heartily for it. I listened carefully to the Minister’s remarks in Committee and thank him and the Secretary of State for their detailed engagement.

Ultrafast Broadband: Devon and Somerset

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), who made many important points on an issue which affects so many across the south-west, particularly in more rural areas. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on securing this debate. In many ways, I wish we did not need to debate this issue. We have been here many times before and we need to get it well and truly sorted.

To me, this is an issue about competition. The south-west needs to compete with the rest of the country. Three-quarters of our young people leave Somerset after their education. Our businesses tell me that to stay in Somerset they need to connect not just through better roads and rail services but through the digital highway. Those businesses and the young people they employ will remain with us only if they can achieve their dreams rendered in full digital glory.

If I may digress, looking across Somerset we see dozens of little hills dotted around; mounds bulging out of the earth. I am sure Members will know that these beacon mounds gave Norman Britain a natural early warning system. When a threat was seen, they would light a fire on top of the nearest beacon and broadcast their concerns across the county in minutes. People would stop their wattling and daubing, grab a pitchfork and be battle-ready in moments. You would think that, 1,000 years later, communications would have improved, but for many homes and businesses you would be wrong. It would probably be quicker to use these ancient beacon hills to deliver a message than to try to fire up their broadband router.

With endless faults and starts, an ever-changing roll call of companies involved in rolling out ultra-fast broadband across Somerset has achieved much, but there are still many pockets of resistance. Many areas across my constituency lag far behind. A lot of work has been done. I think that 46% of premises nationally in the UK are gibabited up, but Devon and Somerset fall way behind. In my patch, only 13% of premises are fully connected. In my constituency, Cury Rivel, Sparkford and Langport fall into the worst 10% of areas for download speed and connectivity. They literally lag far behind, and I see this frustration in my inbox every day.

The pandemic has highlighted the huge productivity gap between urban and rural areas that we have heard about. With ever more people working from home, digital connectivity should be like water or electricity—an essential utility.

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Does he agree with me that the border area between our constituencies—places such as Lopen and Over Stratton—are perfect examples of areas that are falling between the cracks and that there is sometimes a lack of understanding between what the universal service obligation can bring and what can be done through vouchers? Getting people on to the proper gigabit service through vouchers is what they need to be able to engage with the digital future that my hon. Friend mentioned earlier.

[David Warburton]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. I think people are very confused about the voucher system. We continue to lag behind in developing these schemes. A great many small and medium-sized businesses in those areas drive the economy, and their entrepreneurial zeal needs to be fully unleashed. Connecting Devon and Somerset has achieved a great deal. Apparently, we have more premises connected than any other English programme. Coverage is now 90%, and more than 300,000 homes and businesses do have decent broadband, but there is still a great deal more to be done. Rural communities suffer from a productivity gap compared to urban areas, and the answer lies in technology and infrastructure.

The Government were elected on a promise to level up the UK, and I hugely welcome the investment we have had in physical infrastructure across the south-west; we are beginning to see the results of that. We are starting to bridge that physical divide, but it is bridging the digital divide that will really unlock our counties’ vast economic potential.

The problem is that every day that divide grows and we lag further and further behind, which makes it harder and harder to catch up. I say to the Minister that our entrepreneurial zeal needs to be fully unleashed, and digital connectivity is the fibrous ligament that binds us together and acts as a springboard to the future. Like our Norman beacon hills linking villages across the west country, those ligaments strengthen us, our businesses and our communities. They will allow us to react and respond to the needs of tomorrow, so let us grab that opportunity.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con) [V]]

My constituents are most grateful for all the support that has been provided through the pandemic and towards the bounce back as we look forward, and for the success with the long-term project funding that has begun to come through. We are very grateful for the furlough and all the grant and support schemes. In particular, the business rates and VAT exemptions and the increase in capital allowances in this Budget will, I think, set us in very good stead to grow our way back into being able to have the revenue that we all want for our public services and to repair the public finances.

We have had some really big wins that are worth celebrating in Yeovil and district. In particular, there was £10 million in the Budget for the Octagon theatre, which is so important to creative industries locally. There was also some money for the Westlands Entertainment Venue to keep that going with revenue support. We have had, through the pandemic, support for the national league, which has been of great benefit to Yeovil Town and clubs like it. Outside the Budget, we also had some brilliant recent news with the final go-ahead—the final decision—on dualling the A303 section at Podimore, which kicks off a signature project that we as a Government have wanted to institute for the whole of the south-west. That will be of huge benefit to my constituents and everybody throughout the south-west peninsula.

However, huge challenges do remain. For example, our high street in Yeovil is definitely struggling. We have had success in being allocated £9.5 million from the future high streets fund, which is brilliant, but it is fair to say that the private sector involvement in that does need the high streets to be back on their feet, so it is a great credit to the Government that the vaccination programme has been going so well. I encourage everybody to get their vaccination as soon as they are offered it, because that gives us the best prospect of being able to stay open as an economy, stay open on our high streets, get our economy firing again and give people the jobs and opportunities that they need. Rapid tests are a fantastic thing that we have brought in. I think that that really gives us hope that we can get the economy back on track, repair the public finances and have a great future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the independent community news sector is very important and plays an essential role in continuing to provide public information alongside the NMA members in the regional and local press. The agreement that we have reached for advertising will cover 600 national, regional and local titles, which reach something like 49 million people, but I am in touch with the ICNN and we are looking to see what other measures could be put in place to support it and to see whether it could benefit from the Government’s own advertising package.

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con) [V]]

In Somerset, we are fortunate to have some excellent community radio stations, but, across the country, such stations are in need of financial support at this time. What more can the Government do to make sure that community radio stations are not forced to close because of coronavirus?

[Mr Whittingdale]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I very much agree with him that community radio play an essential part in the media landscape, and I am very conscious of the pressures that many community radio stations are currently under. We are looking at ways in which we can support them, perhaps through the use of a community radio fund. That is something that I hope we can say more about very shortly. I am determined to give whatever help is possible to support community radio as well as commercial radio.

Online Harms White Paper

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I think there are two points worth making in response to the right hon. Lady. First, how well the platforms hold to their own terms and conditions may well give the regulator a good indication of how well they are complying with their overarching duty of care. Secondly, she is right that the White Paper envisages that a platform might say to a regulator, “We don’t wish to follow the codes of practice,” but if a platform chooses that path, it must be able to demonstrate to the regulator that the approach it takes instead is at least as effective in dealing with online harms as the codes of practice would have been. Of course, if the platform did not succeed in persuading the regulator that it had done that, the overarching duty of care would continue to apply to it. The duty does not rely on the codes of practice for its ongoing effectiveness.

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

Like many families in south Somerset, I have been concerned about what exposure my children might have to various things online, so I welcome the look that is being taken at this issue. What are we going to do to try to stay ahead of new technologies that are able very efficiently to impersonate so that we can take action in advance? Are we looking at revising the legal framework around harassment and malicious communications to take account of that?

[Jeremy Wright]

The answer to my hon. Friend’s second question is yes. The Law Commission is looking now at exactly how we may refresh the law on online harassment. On his first question, I think he refers to what are commonly described as deepfakes, which are technologically very challenging. As I said earlier, it is important that the process we suggest encourages online platforms to use technology to provide solutions as well as to recognise problems. We expect that, as technology develops to create deepfakes, so should technology develop to help identify them. This duty of care will put the onus on online platforms to do just that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marcus Fysh Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tracey Crouch]

I am happy to join the hon. Lady in congratulating the England women’s rugby team, and also, of course, the England women’s cricket team, who won the world cup as well. I was a coach in an all-girls football club, but I was the only female coach at that club, so I completely understand the point that she has made. The sports strategy sets out, very carefully, our wish to see more female coaches. We need to ensure that mums who take their kids to sports events become involved, rather than just cheering the kids on in the background, and we have tried to address that through the implementation of the sports strategy.

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

14. Yeovil Town ladies football club has achieved great success. It has reached the Football Association’s Women’s Super League 1, and is inspiring girls and women throughout the south-west. What more can the Minister do to help it to continue to inspire?

[Tracey Crouch]

Yeovil Town is indeed an example of great success in women’s football, and I join my hon. Friend in congratulating the club on what it is doing. I also congratulate other female football clubs around the country that are doing their bit to inspire the next generation of girls to get involved in football.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

We are well out of time, but I will take Mr Fysh.

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

The local police in Yeovil report good progress in dealing with domestic violence but would welcome a bit more flexibility from the CPS about the types and amounts of evidence required for prosecution, including evidence gathered by modern methods such as body cameras. Will my right hon. and learned Friend please work with the police and the CPS on those suggestions?

[The Attorney General]

I agree that flexibility is important, and I hope that my hon. Friend will be reassured to know that, with the roll-out of more and more body-worn cameras, we will see this evidence play a greater part in this kind of prosecution. That is welcome, because it means that we can have evidence of what was happening when the police arrived without the need to extract that evidence from complainants who may be reluctant for all sorts of reasons. That is a positive move, and I am sure that we will see more of it in Yeovil and elsewhere.