APPENDIX B
Response from the General Register Office to the
Committee Specialist dated 18 October 2004
Proposal for the Regulatory Reform (Registration
of Births and Deaths) (England and Wales) Order 2004: response
to request for information
Q1 Please explain how the legislation which
would be affected by these provisions may be reformed by an order
under section 1 of the Regulatory Reform Act, given that the burdens
it imposes do not appear to affect persons in the carrying on
of any activity.
The key issues here are what the activities involved
are and whether there are any persons carrying them on.
The activity concerned is the registering of births
and deaths. The Order essentially affects how this activity is
performed. The registration of births and deaths is a significant
activity and, in terms of the Explanatory Notes to the 2001 Act,
is an ongoing matter for registration officers and local authorities.
In respect of the public, it is accepted that most
people are required to register few births and deaths during their
lives though in some cases (disclosure of information, corrections,
paternity issues) the involvement of an individual may well be
ongoing over a substantial period of time. For registration officers
and local authorities there is considerable ongoing activity.
Thus it is not accepted that the burdens the Order
imposes do not appear to affect persons in the carrying on of
any activity. The group of persons affected by burdens in carrying
on any activity is the public and registration officers in particular,
and the activity is the registration of births and deaths.
Q2 Please explain how the new burdens which
would be created by these provisions fall within section 1(1)(c)(i)
of the Regulatory Reform Act.
The new burdens created by these provisions are burdens
that affect persons, and in particular registration officers,
in carrying on the activity of registering a birth or death. For
the reasons set out in response to Q1 these new burdens fall within
section 1(1)(c)(i).
Q3 Can you confirm that burdens imposed on
the Registrar General are not burdens which affect only a government
department, so that the legislation which imposes those burdens
may be reformed by RRO?
The Registrar General (for England and Wales) is
a statutory appointment whose functions are set out in the Registration
Acts. Present machinery of Government means that the present officeholder
is also the National Statistician and the Permanent Secretary
of the Office for National Statistics.
The Registrar General - the head of the civil registration
service - is responsible for the work of Registration Officers,
who are also statutory appointees, and their staff who are employed
by local authorities. Many burdens imposed on the Registrar General
affect Registration Officers and local authorities as well as
the Registrar General's own staff.
Q4 What consideration has been given to making
use of the proposed registration database for the purposes of
verifying the identity of individuals, beyond that necessary for
the purposes of passport applications or benefit claims?
The proposed registration data base would contain
the information that is currently recorded on birth and death
certificates and similar information for future events. These
records contain information that is correct at the time of registration:
no information is held about persons at other times. Each record
is merely a snapshot, a record of an historical event.
A registration record is not proof of identity. Certificates
issued under the Registration Acts carry a specific warning to
that effect. Most organisations, public and private, do not accept
evidence of a birth, in isolation from other documents, as proof
of identity.
It is intended that the proposed registration database
will provide a means by which organisations will be able, electronically,
to verify information about a person's birth (or death) for their
own business purposes. This will, in time, obviate the need for
a citizen to adduce a certificate in support of an application
for a passport, driving licence, bank account or to claim benefit.
If the Government's proposals to introduce identity
cards were implemented then birth and death records would be important
inputs to the establishment of an individual's identity record
but would not alone establish that identity.
Q5 Does the GRO expect that additional uses
for data held in the registration database might be identified
subsequent to the implementation of the proposed reforms and if
so, whether any legal constraint now exists or would be created
by the proposed Order which might impede the use of database information
for the purpose of detecting or preventing fraud and other kinds
of crime?
The legislation has been drafted to anticipate potential
wider use of registration information. Article 45 (and Schedule
12) provides a legal gateway for the Registrar General to disclose
information to specified persons for specified purposes: should
further uses be subsequently identified then, subject to parliamentary
approval, Schedule 12 could be amended to provide for them.
The power of the Registrar General to disclose information
for use in connection with the investigation of criminal offences
has not been affected. Those powers are partly common law powers
(balancing the public interest in observing the obligation of
confidentiality as against the public interest in having the information
disclosed) and section 29 of the Data Protection Act 1998. These
powers would not however enable a police authority to carry out
a fishing expedition.
18 October 2004
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