Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has been made of the implications for her policies in respect of the settlement of the US cases of United States Department of Housing and Urban Development vs Facebook.

The Equality Act 2010 prohibits service providers from discriminating against people on the grounds of protected characteristics.

In response to the Joint Committee on Human Rights report on The Right to Privacy (Article 8) and the Digital Revolution, the government stated that it and other bodies have considered issues around online targeting. The full report can be found here:

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt5801/jtselect/jtrights/313/313.pdf

The work undertaken which is referenced in the report includes the Information Commissioner’s Office’s (ICO) work on advertising technology (AdTech):

https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/what-we-do/our-work-on-adtech/#blogs

The Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation has published its review into online targeting and bias in algorithmic decision making:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cdei-review-of-online-targeting

The Competition and Markets Authority market has published its study into online platforms and the digital advertising market in the UK.

https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/online-platforms-and-digital-advertising-market-study

In a public consultation called Data: A new direction (launched 10 September 2021) the government is also consulting on reform proposals to enable organisations to use personal data and sensitive personal data for the purpose of managing the risk of bias in their AI systems. The ICO has also drafted Guidance on AI and Data Protection, which explains how to process personal data in order to design and test algorithms.