Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-11-22
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): It is certainly new to me. He may have been here a lot longer than I have and there have been other occasions where he has been less than fulsome in his contributions. But I am not in any sense criticising him because everything he says has fantastic precision and clarity, as befits a mere solicitor. It is important that we give him the chance to shine on this particular issue as well I mentioned what a pleasure it is to have the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, here today, particularly because she will speak very well to the fact that only a few happy months ago we worked on the Consumer Rights Bill, which is now an Act, in which a power was given to private enforcers to take civil action in courts to protect collective consumer rights via an enforcement order. The campaigning consumer body Which? is the designated private enforcer Also, in the financial sector, Which?, Citizens Advice, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Consumer Council for Northern Ireland have the power to present super-complaints to the FCA. The super-complainant system is working very well; one reason why the PPI mis-selling scandal was discovered was as a result of the work of Citizens Advice. These independent enforcers of consumer rights in the traditional consumer sector and in the consumer finance sector exist. Why is there no equivalent status for digital consumer enforcers? That is the question raised by the amendment The powers for independent action here are important in themselves and I am sure other noble Lords will speak to that point, but they are also really important at the start of this new regime we are bringing in. With the new Data Protection Bill we have a different arrangement. Far more people are involved and a lot more people are having to think harder about how their data is being used. It makes absolute sense to have a system that does not require too much knowledge or detail, which was aided and abetted by experts who had experience in this, such as Which? and others, and would allow those who are a little fazed by the whole process of trying to raise an action and get things going to have a steady hand that they know will take it on behind them The Government will probably argue that by implementing article 80(1) of the GDPR they are providing effectively the same service. That is a system under which an individual can have their case taken up by much the same bodies as would be available under article 80(2). However, when an individual complainant is working with a body such as Which?, we are probably talking about redress of the individual whose rights have been breached in some way and exacting from the company or companies concerned a penalty or some sort of remuneration. One can see in that sense that the linking between the individual and the body that might take that on is important and would be very helpful However, there are cases—recent ones come to mind such as TalkTalk, Equifax, Cash Converters and Uber—where data has gone missing and there has been a real worry about what information has escaped and is available out there. I do not think that in those cases we are talking about people wanting redress. What they want is action, such as making sure that their credit ratings are not affected by their data having come out and that they could perhaps get out of contracts. One of the issues that was raised with EE and TalkTalk was that people had lost confidence in the companies and wanted to be able to get out of their contracts. That is not a monetary penalty but a different form of arrangement. In some senses, just ongoing monitoring of the company with which one’s data is lodged might be a process. All that plays to a need to have in law in Britain the article 80(2) version of what is in the GDPR. I beg to move.