Extracts from report stage (Lords) (day 3) of the Data Protection Bill - Jan 10
|
Lord Mitchell (CB):...I will make one point as strongly as I can. I
am a product of the data revolution; I have been professionally
involved in the digital industry for over 50 years. For 40 of those
I was an IT serial entrepreneur. This industry has been good to me;
I fully understand that the tech sector needs light regulation. I
know that at its best the digital revolution is a force for good
but, equally, I know the dangers it poses, so I am trying to be
cautious in what I propose. We...Request free trial
Lord Mitchell (CB):...I
will make one point as strongly as I can. I am a product of the
data revolution; I have been professionally involved in the digital
industry for over 50 years. For 40 of those I was an IT serial
entrepreneur. This industry has been good to me; I fully understand
that the tech sector needs light regulation. I know that at its
best the digital revolution is a force for good but, equally, I
know the dangers it poses, so I am trying to be cautious in what I
propose. We stand at a crossroads. Computing power has reached
astronomical capabilities, software is increasingly complex
and Artificial Intelligence is now
making dramatic inroads. Plus, we see the exponential availability
of digital data. All these have contributed to the creation and
brilliance of algorithms. The one thing we know for certain is that
these exciting developments will keep on growing at exponential
rates. In medicine, for example, new tools are being developed that
are already enhancing diagnostic and treatment capabilities that
could benefit all manner of healthcare, in particular our ageing
population...
...At Second Reading I gave the example of a company called DeepMind, which is a British subsidiary of Google. I visited DeepMind, which is an impressive organisation based here in London. It has purchased access to millions of anonymised data records from institutions such as the Royal Free and Moorfields Eye Hospital. It does not buy this data outright—it does not have to. It simply buys access. Such access enables it and companies like it to use very powerful computers and very sophisticated software to process millions of records with the help of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning... The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con):...That sharing, of course, raises ethical issues as well as financial ones and we will debate later the future role and status of the new centre for data ethics and innovation, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, mentioned. This body is under development and I am sure that this House would want to contribute to its development, not least the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and his Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence... Lord Clement-Jones (LD):...This should not be and I do not think it will be a matter of party contention; I think there will be a great deal of consensus on the need to have this kind of body, not just for the narrow field of data protection and the use of data but generally, for the wider application in the whole field, whether it is the internet of things or Artificial Intelligence, and so on. There is therefore a desire to see progress in fairly short order in this kind of area. One of the reasons for that is precisely because of the power of the tech majors. We want to see a much more muscular approach to the use of data by those tech majors. It is coming down the track in all sorts of different varieties. We have seen it in debates in this House; no doubt there will be a discussion tomorrow about social media platforms and their use of news and content and so on. This is therefore a live issue, and I very much hope that the Minister will be able to tell us that the new Secretary of State is dynamically taking this forward as one of the top items on his agenda... Lord Ashton of Hyde:...My Lords, I can certainly confirm that the new Secretary of State is dynamic. In this group we are in danger of violently agreeing with each other. There is a definite consensus on the need for this; whether there will be consensus on the results is another matter. I agree with the analysis given by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, that the trouble is that to get this into the Bill, we have to concentrate on data. As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, outlined, many other things need to be included in this grouping, not least Artificial Intelligence. I will briefly outline what we would like to do. For the record, we understand that the use of data and the data-enabled technologies is transforming our society at unprecedented speed. We should expect Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to inform ever more aspects of our life in increasingly important ways. These new advances have the potential to deliver enormous benefits to society and the economy but, as we are made aware on a daily basis—like the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, I am sure that this will be raised tomorrow in the debate that we are all looking forward to on social media—they are also raising a host of new and profoundly important challenges that we need to consider. One of those challenges, and the focus of this Bill, is protecting people’s personal data—ensuring that it is collected, retained and used appropriately. However, the other challenges and opportunities raised by these technologies go far beyond that, and there are many examples that I could give. Therefore, in the Autumn Budget the Government announced their intention to create a centre for data ethics and innovation to maximise the benefits of AI and data technologies to society and the economy, and to help identify and address the ethical challenges that they pose. The centre will advise the Government and regulators on how they can strengthen and improve the way that data and Artificial Intelligence are governed. It will also support the effective, innovative and ethical use of data and Artificial Intelligence so that we maximise the positive impact that these technologies can have on our economy and society.
We are in the process of working up the centre’s terms of
reference in more detail and will consult on this soon. The
issues it will consider are pressing, and we intend to set it up
in an interim form as soon as possible, in parallel to this
consultation. However, I fully share the noble Lord’s view that
the centre, whatever its precise form, should be placed on a
statutory footing, and I can commit that we will bring forward
appropriate legislation to do so at the earliest opportunity. I
accept the reasoning from the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, on why this is not the
appropriate place due to the limitations of this Bill, and I
therefore hope that he will be able to withdraw his
amendment... |