Digital Economy Bill — House of Lords, 2017-02-06
Topic: Technology
Margaret Beryl Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I expected more people to be inspired by the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, and to join in the debate. I am rising to give my support to Amendments 105 and 106 and to thank the noble Lords, Lord Arbuthnot and Lord Carlile, for highlighting this simple failure in company policy, which can lead to much bigger dangers and threats. As the noble Lord said, it can have commercial implications, personal privacy implications and, ultimately, national security implications. While we all have a part to play setting the highest standards of data protection, it is true that all too often we put the focus on national Governments without recognising the equal responsibilities of the private sector and private companies to play their part. This is particularly vital, given the number of private sector organisations which access data for government contract work. However, it also extends into other realms of commercial activity, such as commercial personal profiling, in which companies build vast data banks of our shopping habits, our friends, our movements—literally, where we are moving around in cities and towns—and our vulnerabilities, all of which have huge value both in their own hands and in the hands of cyber-thieves. These are issues which we have also flagged up in other amendments tabled today, and we have tried to build in more safeguards. My noble friend Lord Collins has said that we believe that individuals should have the right to know what information is being held about them, for example. They should have the right to be able to withdraw permission for the data to be held, and they should have the right to know immediately if a data breach has taken place We welcome the amendments, which would begin to address some of our concerns, by putting a straightforward obligation on companies to prepare a cybersecurity report each year, detailing the measures being taken to ensure that data are being kept safely. It is a simple ask, and it should not really be necessary, but the all too frequent security breaches taking place underline why a legal requirement has to be imposed. An Institute of Directors report last year showed that companies tend to keep quiet when there has been a security breach. As a result, there are no accurate figures on the extent of this crime, or the extent to which companies are being held to ransom. A survey of business leaders found that only half had a formal strategy in place to protect themselves and just 20% held insurance against an attack. Yet we also know that companies are also losing confidence in their encryption systems, their staff capabilities and awareness and the ability of their software to withstand a deliberate assault. This is a huge issue. Of course, we have a vested interest in sorting this out, as often it is our personal data which are being stolen. But on a wider sphere it impacts on everything from company finances to sensitive market data and research and development. So we very much welcome the initiative set out in these amendments, and agree with the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, that they are helpful. In itself, they will not completely solve the problem, but they represent another small step in getting companies to act responsibly in managing the data that they hold.