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Mr. Humfrey Malins (Woking) (Con): I based the number of 51 on a report from Privacy International, which said that clause 1 and schedule 1 set out more than 50 categories of information required for the register, subject to change by regulation. I can either hand the Minister the list of those 51 or read them all out to the Committee in due course.
2.45 pm
Mr. Browne: I have do doubt that Committee members will look forward to the hon. Gentleman reading out that list, as the Privacy International briefing was probably circulated to all of them. The point that I make to the hon. Gentleman is that there is clearly a danger in accepting arguments—without seeking to establish what underlies them—from people who wish to lobby from a particular point of view. What underlies this argument must be the simple arithmetical calculation of counting up all the registrable facts. However, I have the advantage that the Government's thinking—and mine—has to be reduced to the form of a Bill and published; the evidence of the Government's thinking is there. A number of those facts are administrative and are not in the individual's ownership in the sense that no such information is ever in any individual's ownership.
I have no objection to the hon. Gentleman's accepting arguments from other organisations and repeating them; that often engenders healthy debate and discussion. However, if he does that, it must be open to me to point out where those organisations have misinterpreted the Bill, if they have done so, or where they have done that simple arithmetical calculation and misrepresented what a registrable fact is for the purposes of this legislation.
In applying the test of proportionality and of whether this is the historic change that people suggest it is, we should consider the Bill rather than the rhetoric. I argue—whether people are persuaded is a matter for them—that there is no great controversy about the information gathered on individuals in the database and that the Government, in one guise or other, probably know much of that information. Much information on many citizens is in the public domain in any event—in telephone directories or in other documents in general circulation. Such public documents have a significant amount of information about all of us, unless we choose that they should not have it.
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I accept that biometric information is a new concept, and I will come to that. However, it is simply the modern way of identifying someone uniquely. I pray in aid the argument made by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam about the value of biometric information at border points. Such information is about identifying somebody uniquely rather than depending on a photograph or on what used to be included in passports under the heading ''Distinguishing Marks''. In many cases, address details could be gleaned from public documents such as a telephone directory; I shall come back to public documents shortly. I challenge hon. Members to stand up their arguments that somehow that information is of any additional value in identifying somebody securely. I do not understand where that concern comes from.
Mr. Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD): The Minister said that a lot of the information is already available. However, to put the issue in context, we should be clear that when people have tried to publish reverse telephone directories, through which people can collect all kinds of data and publish it on the internet, action has been taken by the Information Commissioner and such things have been found to have been in breach of data protection legislation. There is a lot of public sensitivity on this issue. The fact that the information is there does not mean that that is necessarily accepted by the general public. In the commercial context, that has explicitly not been accepted and actions have been taken to prevent such data being circulated.
Mr. Browne: The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. This register will be subject to the very same data protection legislation. All the protections that we feel are necessary to stop the abuse that people are capable of perpetrating with information will relate to the register as well. The provisions are not in any sense separate from those in general law now under the Data Protection Act 1998 to protect people's valuable personal information. We will later consider specific provisions to ensure that behaviour that is designed to try to use or abuse the information or the register is seriously criminalised, which I am sure will be supported. The Government want to protect against any vulnerability, although they accept that their principal responsibility is to devise a register that is secure against that such behaviour in the first place.
The only information that we believe needs to be held at a higher level is the record of when information has been provided from the register, as that could arguably be used in order to glean information about where and when an ID card has been used. It is obvious that an audit trail of when an ID card has been used and of when access has been granted to information on the register or information from the register has been provided will tell us something about the behaviour and activity of the individual carrying the card. There is no question but that people could draw other conclusions from that information. That is why the many millions who have Tesco cards sign up to allowing Tesco to record information on a database
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about their personal and shopping habits. A friend of mine told me that his cat got a Christmas card from Tesco, because the firm could tell that he bought cat food and so clearly had a cat. I wonder about the extent to which people in this country, including those who object to the proposed scheme, already unwittingly allow a significant amount of information about themselves to be gathered by commercial organisations.
Mr. Malins: That is voluntary.
Mr. Browne: It is voluntary to an extent, but there is such a concept as informed consent, which operates in a number of areas, and I sometimes wonder how informed people are about what they are consenting to when they sign up to loyalty and other cards that they routinely carry around. However, that is a matter for them; we live in a free society and if people wish to do that, they may do so.
The information that I referred to as the audit trail will be subject to the serious crime threshold in clause 20(4) before it can be provided to the police, for the very reason that it is sensitive and because there should be a high threshold before it can be shared, even for the purposes of crime.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that the registrable facts in clause 1(5) included information that a person would not want to be revealed to the police if he or she was being investigated for a criminal offence. Exactly which piece of information would he not wish to be revealed if were asked to volunteer it? Would it be his name, his address, his nationality or even his previous address?
Mr. Malins: I said no such thing.
Mr. Browne: I very clearly remember the hon. Gentleman envisaging a set of circumstances where a comparatively minor crime was committed.
Mr. Malins: Oh yes.
Mr. Browne: Ah, the hon. Gentleman remembers now. I will respond to it in any event; I accept that it might not be the most important argument that he makes.
The importance of the register is that there will be a single, reliable source of registrable facts that individuals can use to help prove their identity, and that in certain circumstances—we will come to those in more detail later—the police and security services and Government Departments can use to help identify people. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam stated that providing those registrable facts for the register will somehow alter the balance between the individual and the state. I want to take that debate head-on, because it is at the heart of the objection in principle of a significant number of people.
As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said on Second Reading—he asked this rhetorical question, and nobody took him up on it—did the compulsory requirement to register the birth of everyone in England and Wales alter the balance between the individual and the state when it was introduced in 1837, or do so when it was introduced in Scotland in
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1855? In fact, it may have done. However, that is the environment in which we have been living in England and Wales since 1837 and in Scotland since 1855. So where is this fundamental change in the relationship between the state and the individual, as it has been required that the birth of every single person in the United Kingdom since 1837 or 1855 be registered?
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab): I am always keen, as I am sure the Minister is, to include Northern Ireland when we are talking about the United Kingdom. Will he tell us when that situation applied in Northern Ireland?
Mr. Browne: To my great embarrassment, I am unable to do so. However, I promise that I will ensure that at some stage before the conclusion of the Committee's proceedings I will provide that information to hon. Members. My hon. Friend will understand why I am embarrassed, because I am very careful to include Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom. I am embarrassed—her presence exacerbates my embarrassment—that the notes that I wrote during lunch do not include research on Northern Ireland.
However, we seem to be talking about a fundamental question. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam is about to take it on and I am happy to let him do so.
Mr. Allan: I tried this morning to set out a case that the proposals represent a fundamental step change. All the other registers and databases that have been collected have been for specific functions. The register of births had a specific function. The registers of births, deaths and so on are not generic databases for a range of functions such as those in clause 1 just in case we might need the information at some future date. There is a difference between saying, ''Every citizen must do this just in case we need it for this massively wide range of functions in the clause'', and saying, ''A birth certificate very carefully defined with specific purposes must be issued in respect of every child that is born.''
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