Semiconductors Manufacturing

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Clement-Jones

Monday 18th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, shall we allow the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, to contribute and then the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones?

Live Facial Recognition: Police Guidance

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Clement-Jones

Monday 4th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the new College of Policing guidance on live facial recognition.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, facial recognition is an important public safety tool that helps the police to identify and eliminate suspects more quickly and accurately. The Government welcome the College of Policing’s national guidance, which responds to a recommendation in the Bridges v South Wales Police judgment.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, despite committing to a lawful, ethical approach, the guidance gives carte blanche to the use of live and retrospective facial recognition, potentially allowing innocent victims and witnesses to be swept on to police watch-lists. This is without any legislation or parliamentary or other oversight, such as that recently recommended by the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, chaired by my noble friend Lady Hamwee. Are we not now sleep-walking into a surveillance society, and is it not now time for a moratorium on this technology, pending a review?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I disagree with everything that the noble Lord has said. I think every police force in the country uses retrospective facial recognition. Watch-lists are deleted upon use at a deployment, so there is no issue regarding ongoing data protection. Importantly, just as CCTV and retrospective recognition are still used to detect criminals, missing persons and vulnerable people, so is the application of LFR.

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Clement-Jones

Committee stage
Monday 14th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Yes, I think I was clear in my opening remarks that I am not at odds with the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, at all. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, is absolutely right that, in the longer term, we should look across the whole cost landscape. What I am trying to say is that, in protecting agencies incurring costs in Part 5, it unintentionally removes the current clauses relating to Part 8. I am trying to differentiate between Part 8 and Part 5 of POCA. It is utterly unintentional, I am sure, but I hope that helps the noble Lord.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister is speaking the language I understand now—if it is technically flawed, then of course it is ripe for withdrawal. I welcome what the Minister said about getting consistency across the landscape, because that is clearly important. There is absolutely no reason why it should not be across the whole of the proceeds of crime landscape.

Perhaps I can squeeze a commitment out of the Minister. We managed to get the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, to commit to looking at certain aspects of enablers in the second economic crime Bill—I think we need to call it the ECB 2 now. If the Minister could give us a commitment that the Government will look at this question of the cost landscape as part of the second round, when we can consider these issues in much greater detail and at greater length, then I would be entirely satisfied.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I am very happy to explore the cost landscape after this Bill because, as I said, I am principally not at odds with the noble Lord at all.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I share the sentiment of my noble friend that they will not be a niche activity. The measures in this Bill, particularly in terms of costs, will make it far easier for our law enforcement agencies to not be stymied by costs in bringing these things forward.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her responses. As she understands, one of my main motives is to bring pleasure to the Treasury. Given that the NCA’s budget—we talked about its budget—for crime prevention is, I think, something like £4 million and there was £1.5 million in costs in the Aliyev case, we would clearly all be winners if this review takes place. I thank the Minister for that commitment and, in the meantime, beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Surveillance Camera Code of Practice

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Clement-Jones

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I referenced this without mentioning the company’s name. I recognise the seriousness of the issue and I will take the point back.

I have had a note to say that it is at constable level, but of course they are accountable to the PCC.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comprehensive reply. This has been a short but very focused debate and full of extraordinary experience from around the House. I am extremely grateful to noble Lords for coming and contributing to this debate in the expert way they have.

Some phrases rest in the mind. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, talked about live facial recognition being the tactic of authoritarian regimes, and there are several unanswered questions about Hikvision in particular that he has raised. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, talked about the police needing democratic licence to operate, which was also the thrust of what the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has been raising. It was also very telling that the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said the IPA code was much more comprehensive than this code. That is somewhat extraordinary, given the subject matter of the IPA code. The mantra of not stifling innovation seems to cut across every form of government regulation at the moment. The fact is that, quite often, certainty in regulation can actually boost innovation— I think that is completely lost on this Government.

The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, talked about human rights being in a parlous state, and I appreciated her remarks—both in a personal capacity and as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission—about the public sector equality duty and what is required, and the fact that human rights need to be embedded in the regulation of live facial recognition.

Of course, not all speakers would go as far as I would in asking for a moratorium while we have a review. However, all speakers would go as far as I go in requiring a review. I thought the adumbration by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, of the elements of a review of that kind was extremely useful.

The Minister spent some time extolling the technology —its accuracy and freedom from bias and so on—but in a sense that is a secondary issue. Of course it is important, but the underpinning of this by a proper legal framework is crucial. Telling us all to wait until we see the College of Policing guidance does not really seem satisfactory. The aspect underlying everything we have all said is that this is piecemeal—it is a patchwork of legislation. You take a little bit from equalities legislation, a little bit from the Data Protection Act, a little bit to come—we know not what—from the College of Policing guidance. None of that is satisfactory. Do we all just have to wait around until the next round of judicial review and the next case against the police demonstrate that the current framework is not adequate?

Of course I will not put this to a vote. This debate was to put down a marker—another marker. The Government cannot be in any doubt at all that there is considerable anxiety and concern about the use of this technology, but this seems to be the modus operandi of the Home Office: do the minimum as required by a court case, argue that it is entirely compliant when it is not and keep blundering on. This is obviously light relief for the Minister compared with the police Bill and the Nationality and Borders Bill, so I will not torture her any further. However, I hope she takes this back to the Home Office and that we come up with a much more satisfactory framework than we have currently.

Data Protection: Immigration Exemption

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Clement-Jones

Monday 31st January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, if I may interrupt the Minister, Lord Justice Warby’s decision on that is utterly clear about what Recital 41 does require. That is precisely the point of contention.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, it is, but it does not specify by way of form or content of the legislative measure, and that is the point I am trying to make.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

But it has to be a legislative measure, not guidance.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Perhaps I could reiterate that Recital 41 states that:

“Where this Regulation refers to a legal basis or a legislative measure, this does not necessarily require a legislative act adopted by a parliament”.


We will beg to differ on that, but I am just quoting what Recital 41 says.

To address the court’s concerns, the regulations therefore amend the immigration exemption, primarily to include all the relevant matters in Article 23(2)(a) to (h) of the UK GDPR. It might be helpful if I provide some details on those matters that are not relevant and are already covered in the DPA 2018. For those particular matters, no amendments are needed to the legislation, as well as for those matters that are not relevant. I will provide some details on the measures that are relevant and for which amendments have been made.

Before I do that, I point out that the regulations introduced a statutory requirement for the department to have an immigration exemption policy document before the immigration exemption could actually be applied—that is in response to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. Regulation 2(2)(b) specified what must be addressed in the policy, and the controller must have regard to it. In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, we are working to tighten the deadlines set by the court, and we did publish the IEPD draft on 10 December on GOV.UK.

Continuing now on what is and is not relevant, the following limbs of Article 23(2) are already sufficiently covered in the DPA 2018. Therefore, no amendments will be made to the legislation in relation to those limbs. They are, from Article 23(2):

“(a) the purposes of the processing or categories of processing; (b) the categories of personal data; (c) the scope of the restrictions introduced … (g) the risks to the rights and freedoms of data subjects”.


The requirement under Article 23(2)(f) to make provision in respect of

“the storage periods and the applicable safeguards taking into account the nature, scope and purposes of the processing or categories of processing”

is not relevant, as the immigration exemption does not purport to extend data storage periods, and so no amendments are proposed in this regard.

On amendments made in relation to Article 23(2)(d), including the IEPD, the article states that where relevant there shall be provisions for safeguards to prevent abuse or unlawful access or transfer. This instrument will introduce additional measures to address Article 23(2)(d). It will mandate the Secretary of State to have an immigration exemption policy document in place prior to the exemption being relied on; that they must have regard to their IEPD when applying the exemption; that a record is kept of the application of the immigration exemption; and that the data subject be informed of its application, save in certain circumstances.

The IEPD and any subsequent updates to it will be published in a manner that the Secretary of State considers appropriate. Publication will allow for flexibility, where future concerns arise—I will take back the comments that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made this evening. There is no requirement to go through Parliament and any future concerns, if they arise, could be addressed in a shorter timeframe.

The regulations also specify what the IEPD must address. This additional measure will promote high standards of safeguards in applying the immigration exemption, consistent with those in relation to personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences. The IEPD explains how the immigration exemption must be operationally applied and the circumstances in which data rights might be exempted. These are set out in clear and precise terms. They will form part of Schedule 2 to the DPA 2018 once in force and, as such, will clearly constitute legislative measures.

Amendments are also made to Article 23(2)(e), on provisions as to the specification of the controller or categories of controllers, and to Article 23(2)(h), which states that where relevant there shall be provisions for the right of a data subject to be informed about the restriction, unless that is prejudicial to the purposes of the restriction—we went through that during the previous debate. The instrument will amend the immigration exemption so that the controller will have to inform the data subject that the exemption has been relied upon unless to do so would prejudice the purpose of the restriction, once again proving our commitment to be as open and transparent as we are able.

I am not sure whether it was the noble Baroness or the noble Lord who asked about the consultation process, but they almost played my words back to me. We consulted the parties to the litigation and the ICO and considered carefully their observations and comments, making amendments to the draft as appropriate, but clearly we did not take everyone’s comments on board, and therefore the court process came into being. We have tried, as far as possible, to address the issues through the IEPD.

I hope that noble Lords are now satisfied—I do not think they are, judging by their faces. I shall leave it there.

Metropolitan Police: Live Facial Recognition

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Clement-Jones

Monday 16th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I understand that the incident at Oxford Circus was on 20 February. I understand also—I will be corrected if I am wrong—that the machinery was not working on that date .

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, the Home Office and the Met seem absolutely determined to ignore all the advice they have been getting from the Information Commissioner, RUSI and many others. To cap it all, the database of Clearview, a US tech company with highly controversial data-collecting methods, is now being used by the Met and several other UK police forces in their facial recognition deployment. For what purposes are the Clearview database being used? Has legal advice been sought, given that 3 billion images are involved in this sensitive biometric processing without any data subject’s knowledge or consent, and does all this not add up, once again, to make the case for a moratorium and a review of the regulation of this technology?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I understand that the Met has stated that the images on the watchlist are drawn from its own database of images taken on arrest, or other images of suspects.

Facial Recognition Surveillance

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Clement-Jones

Monday 27th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, this was recently tested in court and the High Court found that the police were operating within the law, so we do not feel that there is any need for further legislation at this point. However, I understand that the decision is being appealed, so that is probably about as far as I can go today.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I confess to being rather baffled by the Government’s agreement to this. Only in September, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner said in the context of live facial recognition technology that the UK risks becoming a

“ghastly, Orwellian, omniscient police state”

with

“potential for bias in the data or the algorithm.”

The Information Commissioner expressed deep concern in her last report and in her reaction to the Met’s deployment. She said:

“We reiterate our call for Government to introduce a statutory and binding code of practice for LFR as a matter of priority.”


The Home Office’s own Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group has questioned the accuracy of live facial recognition technology and noted its potential for biased outputs and biased decision-making on the part of system operators. The Science and Technology Committee recommended a moratorium in its report of just over a year ago. When the Minister responded to me in an Oral Question about the watchlist, that was not reassuring either: the watchlist is extensive. Is the answer not a moratorium as a first step, to put a stop to this unregulated invasion of our privacy? I commend to the Minister in that context my Private Member’s Bill, due to have a First Reading next week.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I wish the noble Lord’s Private Member’s Bill all the very best when it comes to your Lordships’ House—without pre-empting, obviously, its outcome.

As for inaccuracy, LFR has been shown to be 80% accurate. It has thrown up one false result in 4,500 and there was no evidence of racial bias against BME people. I should point out that a human operative always makes the final decision; this is not decision by machine.