Q
344Mr.
Bellingham: Of course, it would have been far better if
this had been a free-standing Bill on data. I have one final question.
On notification fees, clause 154, is there an argument for exempting
MPs, for the simple reason that I am a data controller—we are
all data controllers. It is fairly ridiculous when we do not want to be
data controllers, but we are made to be, and we are made to
register and pay a fee. What is your view on that?
Richard
Thomas: We have persuaded the Department that a flat
fee for all data controllers is wrong in principle. At the moment an
individual, whether a Member of Parliament or a sole trader, pays
£35, as do Barclays bank, the Home Office, and large
conglomerates. That does not need primary legislation, although the
MOJ, I am pleased to say, is bringing forward proposals. The approach
will be tiered, so that a fairly small number of much larger
organisations will pay substantially more. Every other data controller
will remain at £35.
I think you
are trying to draw me into whether Members of Parliament should be
excluded from the Act altogether and I do not wish to go too far down
that road this afternoon. However, if you are processing
personal data, you are generating the same sort of risks as any other
data controller. I would need some persuasion that there was a special
category for Members of Parliament. I may make myself unpopular by
saying that, but I look at it from the point of view of the risks to
the individual. Sometimes, very sensitive information is held by
Members of Parliament and people recognise there need to be stringent
safeguards to make sure that they are looked after in the same way as
all other reputable organisations.
Q
345Mr.
Garnier: I want to follow up on Mr
Bellingham’s point about a discrete Bill. This Bill is
219 pages long, and it deals with all sorts of things, very few of
which are to do with your responsibilities and data protection. Four
clauses, and schedule 18, touch upon you. Would we not better deal with
this subject if we did not construct Bills in this way, and if data
protection matters were dealt with in a data protection amendment Bill
or a separate data
Bill? Richard
Thomas: We are now used to being part of the Criminal
Justice and Immigration Act 2008 and the Coroners and Justice Bill
2009. We consider ourselves fortunate to get what we can get. We would
love to see a separate self-contained data protection Bill, but we live
in the real world. We have fought long and hard to get our powers
increased, and we are going in that direction.
I think that there has been a sea change in public attitudes and in
political attitudes, and it is very welcome that Parliament is now
being invited to take our position far more seriously. We have been
marginalised for far too long. I do not mind too much whether data
protection is part of a larger Bill or is in a self-contained one. What
is really important is that we get stronger
powers.
Q
346Mr.
Garnier: I can see that, but the point is that the Bill
will be subject to timetabling. In Committee in the coming weeks there
will be knives and on Report there will a guillotine, and therefore
some of the issues that you want discussed might get timetabled out. I
want to ask you, if I may, to use your influence in your few remaining
months in office to persuade Departments not to do this to us because
it wrecks public confidence in the
legislation. Richard
Thomas: I understand your points. I have also worked
in public policy for many years, and I understand the constraints of
the parliamentary timetable. I understand also that part 8 has now been
accelerated before the Committee, so it might get fuller consideration
than otherwise might have been the case. I very much welcome
that.
Q
347The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Bridget
Prentice): Perhaps the Information Commissioner will
ponder my question and write to us with his response. On proposed new
section 50A(3)(b) to the Data Protection Act 1998, he said that he had
concerns about gathering information and then using it for a different
purpose. Mr. Smith used the good example of the butter
mountain. I think that it was probably the Department of Health and
Social Security at the time—I do remember it, I am sad to
say—that was not able directly to share the information with
local authorities. But if, for example, a local authority had
information on its electoral register that it could share with its
council tax register and vice versa, that would be, would it not, using
the data for a different purpose? Would that not be beneficial sharing?
We are running out of time, but perhaps you will come back to us with
where examples of beneficial sharing could be incorporated into that
part of the
Bill. David
Smith: We will come back to you in detail, but I wish
to make two quick points. This is a slight technicality, but the
electoral registration officer is separate from the local authority and
that would therefore be the moving of data from one body to
another—true information sharing. We can see that there might be
a case for use of information for another purpose in some
circumstances, but our concern is about how the Bill has been
constructed—that information sharing, as defined, means not just
passing information from me to you, but that something you have given
me is used for a different purpose. If you have given me something to
provide you with a service and I then use it for marketing—a
different purpose—I have not shared it in the common parlance;
no one on the street would understand that as sharing. Sharing involves
movement from one organisation to
another. Our
concern is that we have to translate the legislation into common-sense
guidance for the public, in line with good regulatory practice. A lot
has been said in the past about the Data Protection Act being a
minefield,
aninelegant piece of legislation—I cannot remember the exact term
used—and a lot of that derives from the directive. All that we
are saying is please give us a tool that complies with common sense and
we will find it a lot easier to do our job of being an effective
regulator and explaining the legislation to people. It is a lot to do
with drafting rather than intent. The
Chairman: Mr. Thomas and Mr. Smith,
thank you very much indeed. The Committee is indebted
to
you. Ordered,
That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Ian
Lucas.) 3.59
pm Adjourned
till Tuesday 10 February at half-past Ten
o’clock.
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