Clause 152 of this Bill, currently waiting to go before a Public Bill Committee for line-by-line scrutiny, contains powers for the Government to pass personal data about all of us from one part of government to another. This is in fundamental breach of the Data Protection Principles under which personal data is collected and handled by public bodies. Okay, what Parliament giveth, Parliament can take away, but cursed be the name of Parliament for we lack a written constitution.
What this clause will do, should it be enacted, is permit data collected for one purpose to be used for any other government power or function by means of an Order. Now, that sounds complicated and difficult but it isn’t. Orders in Council are made by the dozen every week and are subject to no legislative scrutiny. They are extra-parliamentary executive powers. Although useful, such powers are, of course, entirely at the whim of the executive and can be used for less and well as more worthy reasons, and by less as well as more worthy ministers and governments – and they need give no reason.
Phil Booth, of the No2ID campaign, spoke at yesterday’s Convention on Modern Liberty about the need to act, and to act swiftly, to protect all of our personal data. The following quote from Phil Booth has been posted on Samizdata.net by Guy Herbert:
At the Convention on Modern Liberty, I launched NO2ID’s request that everyone at the convention – and around the UK – tells their MP right now that they refuse their consent to having their information shared under any “information sharing order”, a power currently being slipped onto the statute books in clause 152 of the coroners and justice bill .
Please tell yours too. It’s important, and urgent – and something that only YOU can do. If you never have before, now’s the time to write to your MP – in a letter, or via www.WriteToThem.com.
Jack Straw has been making noises that could signal a ‘compromise’, but the only acceptable action is to remove clause 152 entirely from the bill. It is not linked to any other clause, despite being sandwiched between other powers and so-called safeguards offered to the information commissioner. It cannot be improved, and Straw can’t be allowed to merely “dilute” it. Clause 152 just has to go.
It’s imperative that in coming days every MP hears from his or her constituents. Please tell them you refuse consent to having your information, taken for one purpose, arbitrarily used for any other purpose. And ask them to vote clause 152 off the bill.
Well, I’ve done just that, and urge you to do the same. If you happen to be reading this from Argyll & Bute, Alan Reid is your MP. The following is the text of my letter:
Dear Alan Reid,
Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the Glasgow satellite meeting of the Convention on Modern Liberty. At that meeting I heard from Phil Booth of the No2ID campaign about Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill which is about to go into Public Bill Committee.
This Clause, if enacted, would give governments and ministers of any political shade executive powers to take personal data given in trust by the public for one purpose and to use it without the owner’s consent for any other purpose the Executive sees fit.
The powers would be exercisable by Order, but you and I know that Orders are easily made and subject to no democratic or legislative scrutiny.
Such powers are entirely unacceptable in any free or democratic society, whatever smokescreen of efficiency or security the government may throw up. It was precisely the potential that national access to personal data had to facilitate totalitarianism that ensured that those who wisely and carefully drafted the constitution for the Federal Republic of Germany after the last war ensured that this could never happen in that state. That constitutional arrangement has held fast as a bulwark against totalitarianism in the west of Germany and those citizens of the east have been delighted to move from the caring concern of their former governments to the liberty of the western dispensation.
Please be clear that I irrevocably refuse my consent to any of my personal data, given freely and in trust for a particular purpose, being transferred at the whim of the executive to any other arm of government or used for any other purpose.
I urge you to vote against this measure at any and every opportunity. I know that measures such as these run entirely contrary to the principles and ethics of the Liberal Democrat party. I, for one, refuse to be enslaved by conformity.
I look forward to hearing your own views on this matter. I am publishing this letter on my own blog (http:// patthechooks.wordpress.com) and will publish your reply, subject to your consent of course, in the same way.
Yours sincerely …
Pat the Chooks 