Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation — House of Lords, 2018-11-21
Topic: Technology
Timothy Francis Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I too thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. He was missed in the debate on Monday. I have had the benefit of reading the Government’s response to the consultation on the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation. I share the enthusiasm for the centre’s creation, as did the Select Committee, and, now, for the clarification of the centre’s role, which will be very important in ensuring public trust in artificial intelligence. I am also enthusiastic about the appointments—described, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, as "stellar" in the Government’s own press release. In particular, I congratulate Members of this House and especially the noble Baroness, Lady Rock, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, who contributed so much to our AI Select Committee. I am sure that both will keep the flame of our conclusions alive. I am delighted that we will also see a full strategy for the centre emerging early next year I too have a few questions for the Minister and I suspect that, in view of the number asked by me and by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, he will much prefer to write. Essentially, many of them relate to the relations between the very crowded landscape of regulatory bodies and the government departments involved Of course¸ the centre is an interim body. It will eventually be statutory but, as an independent body, where will the accountability lie? To which government department or body will it be accountable? Will it produce its own ethics framework for adoption across a wide range of sectors? Will it advocate such a framework internationally, and through what channels and institutions? Who will advise the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS on the use of health data in AI applications? Will it be the centre or the ICO, or indeed both? Will the study of bias, which has been announced by the centre, explore the development of audit mechanisms to identify and minimise bias in algorithms? How will the centre carry out its function of advising the private sector on best practice, such as ethics codes and advisory boards? What links will there be with the Competition and Markets Authority over the question of data monopolies, which I know the Government and the CMA are both conscious of? In their consideration of data trust, will the government Office for Artificial Intelligence, which I see will be the responsible body, also look at the benefits of and incentives for hubs of all things? These are beginning to emerge as a very important way of protecting private data What links will there be with other government departments in giving advice on the application of AI and the use of datasets? The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, referred to lethal autonomous weapons, which emerged as a major issue in our debate on Monday. What kind of regular contact will there be with government departments—in particular, with the Ministry of Defence? One of the big concerns of the Select Committee was: what formal mechanisms for co-ordinating policy and action between the Office for Artificial Intelligence, the AI Council, the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation and the ICO will there be? That needs to be resolved Finally, the centre will have a major role in all the above in its new studies of bias and micro-targeting, and therefore the big question is: will it be adequately resourced? What will its budget be? In the debate on Monday, I said that we need to ensure that we maintain the momentum in developing our national strategy, and this requires government to will the means.