Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
40-41)
MR CHRISTOPHER
GRAHAM AND
MR JONATHAN
BAMFORD
23 MARCH 2010
Q40 Bob Russell: Is that not an invasion
of personal privacy?
Mr Bamford: If that is a traffic
fine camera, where there can be a debate about who is driving
a vehicle then it might be quite proper to—
Bob Russell: This is on private property.
A motorway service station is not part of the highway. It is private
land. These are cameras being used by private companies to extract
vast sums of money—
Q41 Mr Winnick: Mr Bamford, perhaps
Mr Russell could be written to over that. Can you arrange for
that?
Mr Bamford: I will.
Mr Graham: Can I just say one
thing about that? That is a rather good illustration of how the
Information Commissioner's Office is only responsible for part
of the problem. So far as CCTV is concerned, we are only charged
by Parliament to be interested in the data protection side of
the thing, but there are other issues, and I think this is an
example where people say, "We are worried about the surveillance
society. Who is in charge of all this?" The answer is that
nobody is in charge of all this; we are in charge of part of it.
We do not have responsibility for the Regulation of Investigatory
Powers Act. Quite a lot of the surveillance, snooping side of
things is not our business at all. Chairman, you did ask the ICO
to report to Parliament and it was not clear where we were going
to get the resources to do an annual report to Parliament, but
we have put in place a research project with the Surveillance
Studies Network, which did the original surveillance society report
for us back in 2006. We have asked them to update that work. It
is a £48,000 research project. It is coming on to my desk
before the end of May and I hope that I will be able to bring
a considered report to Parliament on the state of the surveillance
society from the ICO point of view.
Mr Winnick: That would be indeed very
interesting. Mr Graham, this is the last session of the Home Affairs
Committee in this Parliament, but one thing is pretty certain:
whatever the outcome of the election there will be a Home Affairs
Committee in the next Parliament and I cannot imagine that you
will not be much involved in giving evidence. Can I thank you
both for coming along today. It has been very informative.
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