Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-11-15
Topic: Civil Rights
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said in her opening remarks, the amendments in this group relate to the data protection principles as they apply to law enforcement processing I will deal first with the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, before moving on to the others. Amendments 129G and 129H would add a requirement that processing under Part 3 be transparent as well as lawful and fair, thus mirroring the data protection principles set out in Parts 2 and 4 of the Bill. There is a very simple explanation for the difference of approach. The GDPR and the Council of Europe Convention 108, on which the provisions of Parts 2 and 4 are based, are designed for general processing. Therefore, it is wholly appropriate in that context that the processing of personal data should be transparent. Of course, that data protection principle, as with certain others, will apply subject to the application of the exceptions provided for in Parts 2 and 4, including where necessary to safeguard national security. At first glance, I accept that it might seem odd that Part 4 of the Bill, which relates to processing by the intelligence services, contains a requirement for transparency, but the provisions in Part 4 must be compliant with the modernised Convention 108. As I have said, that data protection principle will operate subject to the application of the exceptions provided for in that part In contrast, Part 3 of the Bill reflects the provisions of the law enforcement directive, which is designed to govern law enforcement processing; in this context, it is appropriate that the transparency requirement should not apply. A requirement that all such processing be transparent would, for example, undermine police investigations and operation capabilities. That is not to say that controllers under Part 3 will not process data transparently where they can, and Chapter 3 of this part imposes significant duties on controllers to provide information to data subjects Amendments 129J and 133ZJ are not about a popular Saturday night television programme, but about the significance of the word "strictly" in the context of Clause 33(5). Our approach here, and elsewhere, has been to copy out the language of the law enforcement directive wherever possible. Article 10 of the LED uses the phrase "strictly necessary". The noble Baroness asked whether references in Part 3 to "necessary" and "strictly necessary" should be interpreted differently. That must be the case: "strictly necessary" is a higher threshold than "necessary" on its own Amendment 130A brings us back to the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which was the subject of some debate on day two of Committee. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm, indicated in response to that debate, we are carefully considering the Delegated Powers Committee’s report and will respond before the next stage of the Bill Amendment 133ZB would replace the term "legitimate" in Clause 34—which establishes the second data protection principle—with the phrase "authorised by law". I do not believe that there is any material difference between the two terms. Moreover, "legitimate" is used in both the GDPR and the LED, so for that reason we should retain the language used in those instruments to avoid creating legal uncertainty The noble Baroness asked about ECJ case law, post Brexit. The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill sets out how judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union are to be treated by domestic courts and tribunals after exit day. Clause 6 of that Bill draws a distinction between pre-exit and post-exit CJEU case law. Domestic courts and tribunals are not bound by post-exit case law but may have regard to it if they consider it appropriate. In contrast, pre-exit case law is binding on most domestic courts and tribunals in so far as it is relevant to questions pertaining to retained EU law. The Supreme Court and, in some circumstances, the High Court of Justiciary are, however, not bound. They may depart from pre-exit CJEU case law by reference to the same test that applies when they decide whether to depart from their own case law Amendment 133ZD seeks to strike out the reference to "where relevant" in Clause 36(3), which requires a controller to make a distinction between different categories of data subjects, such as suspects, convicted offenders and victims. There may well be a case where it simply would not be relevant for a controller to draw such a distinction. If a controller processes data in respect of only one of the categories of data subject, there is evidently no need for this provision Amendment 133ZE seeks to simplify the drafting of Clause 36(4). I do not believe the definitions in Clause 2 support the case for this amendment. Clause 2 defines processing, which includes disclosure, but it does not provide a general definition of disclosure, so it is preferable to retain the language in Clause 36(4) Amendment 133ZK would introduce a requirement on controllers to publish their policy documents relating to sensitive processing. Such policy documents may contain operationally sensitive information that could well be damaging if published. Given this, scrutiny of such documents by the Information Commissioner, where necessary, provides an appropriate safeguard I turn to the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. Amendment 133ZA would remove archiving from the list of conditions for processing sensitive data. Law enforcement agencies often archive data for public protection purposes. However, it is right that sufficient safeguards should be in place, particularly concerning sensitive data. The Bill achieves this by permitting archiving only where it is necessary The noble Lord asked in what circumstances archiving would be carried out for a purpose connected with law enforcement processing. It may be necessary where, for example, a law enforcement agency needs to review historical offences, such as allegations of child sexual exploitation. On this occasion, data have been processed for the purposes of reviewing the approach taken in child abuse cases investigated decades previously.