Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-12-13
Topic: Civil Rights
Timothy Francis Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will speak also to a number of other amendments to Clause 13 in this group. I regret that the rules of drafting on Report mean that I was not able to produce a consolidated clause; it is rather bitty in the way it is presented in the amendments, but I very much hope that the Minister will be able to interpret the bits as eventually forming a perfectly-formed whole and a much preferable alternative Clause 13. In addition to those amendments I will speak to Amendment 41, which constitutes a new clause after Clause 13 Clause 13 concerns the prohibition and exemptions around significant solely automated decisions. However, it can be confusing. There are three grounds on which such decisions are permitted under the GDPR: to enter or to perform a contract, to give explicit consent or to be authorised under UK law. Clause 13 concerns only the safeguards for the last category. Therefore, our amended version of Clause 13 has the following important four aims First, it clarifies that an individual’s ability to claim that a decision had a significant effect on them—a prerequisite for triggering any of the protections that the GDPR has to offer relating to automated decision-making—can be grounded in a significant effect on a protected group under the Equality Act 2010. The Equality Act is a strong piece of legislation, but it contains no information rights for individuals to investigate suspicions of machine bias or illegal discrimination. Given that the Information Commissioner will already be overloaded with work, given the changes accompanying the GDPR and the speed of technological development, this is a simple and crucial check and balance that will strengthen enforcement of not just data protection but many UK laws Secondly, the amendments further clarify that in order to claim that a decision was not solely automated—and therefore benefiting from none of this clause’s protections—there must be "meaningful human input". The Minister argued in Committee that this is, "precisely the meaning that that phrase already has".—[Official Report, 13/11/17; col. 1869.] Unfortunately, we have reason for concern because, in respect of identical wording in the 1995 data protection directive, German courts, for instance, have previously read "solely" in a restricted, narrow sense. Therefore, having such clarification in the Bill would ensure that the Minister’s understanding of the protection afforded to data subjects is the protection they will receive. This clarification is in line with the article 29 working party guidance—I recognise that the Minister corresponded with me on the subject of article 29 guidance—but it takes us closer to an adequacy agreement if one is sought upon leaving the EU Thirdly, the Explanatory Notes in paragraph 115 promise a safeguard that is not found in any of the articles of the GDPR, nor the safeguards laid out by the Government: a right to, "an explanation of the decision reached after an assessment" The cause of this is that its position is in a non-binding recital, and there is a contradiction between the recitals and the main text. This is easily rectified for the decisions authorised by law, as the purpose of Clause 13 is to specify safeguards for these particularly impactful and largely public sector decisions It is included as well to indicate—in a very similar way to a recent French law on exactly the same issue—what such an explanation should provide to be useful. These explanations are possible even with black box algorithms. I have tabled an additional simple amendment to include this safeguard explicitly for automated decisions authorised by consent or contract, not just those authorised by law.