Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-81)
Professor Elspeth Guild and Mr Tony Bunyan
21 MARCH 2007
Q80 Lord Jopling: I would just like
to end with an extra question to try to understand better in my
mind what your philosophical approach is to both the Prüm
and the PNR situations. Let me try and find that out by asking
you what your attitude is to, for instance, a new technique which
is being used in the UK by the police where they have a van sitting
on a motorway bridge which monitors the number plates of all vehicles
travelling on that road, and a mile down the road are cars and
motorcyclists who will stop anyone whom the computer has shown
to be in a car which is stolen, maybe which is associated with
people in whom the police are interested. It has, I may say, been
hugely successful in finding people on roads and catching stolen
cars and apprehending people whom the police are interested in.
It does not always lead to arrests or even prosecutions, but it
can perhaps lead to cars being stopped which have been reported
missing and then have been restored to the owner and so on, so
mistakes are made, and that information can be used again by the
police if they can then show that somebody was on that motorway
and they said they were not. There are parallels between that
and PNR and Prüm. Do you have similar reservations about
this new police technique, this magic way that they have of being
able to tell after a vehicle has gone half a mile whether it is
something they are interested in?
Mr Bunyan: I think you raise a specific issue.
If we are talking about road safety that is one issue.
Q81 Lord Jopling: No, we are not
talking about road safety.
Mr Bunyan: I am saying if it was just road safety
it would be one issue, but if then you link it into the PNR and
the gathering of data on people and what they are doing, then
I think it is a major political, ethical and moral question for
this Parliament and the European Parliament. If we look at the
gathering of data for passports, ID cards, health cards, driving
licences, the sharing of that data, the interoperability of it,
the access to it, the control over it, whether we have got annual
reports on it, is a very big discussion on which there is a sense
that there is too little concrete information about what kind
of world we are heading for if we are going to do that. I probably
cannot give you an answer which will satisfy you in the course
of this Committee because it is partly technical but it is also
a moral and political question. We run across it in our work and
we see that the EU in secret committees is discussing at what
age to fingerprint children. Then we get concerned, you get discussions
saying it should be 12 for children and then it should be six
and you realise that this discussion is purely based not on a
moral or political issue but on what is technologically possible.
I am sorry; I am one of those old-fashioned people who believes
yes, we should use technology, but we use technology by having
open political debate which ensures accountability and scrutiny
and there are limits on the use of that technology. Just because
we can/it is technologically/technically possible does not mean
to say we should use it.
Professor Guild: I just wish to signal that
I am not entirely in agreement with Tony on this particular question
but perhaps this is not the time or place to go into that discussion.
Chairman: We are extremely grateful to you both
for the very helpful answers you have given. We are hoping to
produce our report in a pretty short time. If anything occurs
to either of you in the next few days, even in advance of seeing
the transcript, and I think we have already touched on one point
by Mr Bunyan, that you feel you ought to let us have in writing,
we would be extremely grateful if you could let us have it. Meanwhile,
we are very grateful to you both and it is very nice to see you
again. No doubt we shall see you again in the future.
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