Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether the Government has made an assessment of the potential merits of reforming the recording regulations in the Data Protection Act 1998 to ensure that consent is obtained from all parties before the processing of data can take place.
Answered by Paul Scully
The UK’s data protection legislation is now set out in the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK General Data Protection Regulation. Like the previous legislation, consent is not the only lawful ground on which processing of personal data can occur. For example, it might be necessary for organisations to process data for public interest reasons, such as crime prevention or safeguarding, without seeking the consent of the individual first. Similarly, there may be some non-intrusive commercial activities that customers may reasonably expect organisations to take without seeking their specific consent.
We are taking steps in the Data Protection and Digital Information (No. 2) Bill to reform aspects of the current legislation. Where processing of personal data is based on a person’s consent, the Bill will not make any changes to the rules which require consent to be freely given, specific and informed. The Bill will make some changes to existing record-keeping requirements which can place unnecessary burdens on small businesses in particular. In the future, organisations will only have to keep records of their processing activities if their processing activities are likely to pose high risks to the rights and freedoms of individuals. This will help to make sure that organisations are not spending disproportionate amounts of time and resources on unnecessary paperwork.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of including measures to help tackle fake online reviews in the Online Safety Bill.
Answered by Paul Scully
Online fake reviews are not within scope of the Online Safety Bill but are being addressed through separate legislation. The new Digital Markets and Consumers Competition Bill, which was introduced to Parliament on 25 April, includes a delegated power to amend the ‘blacklist’ of automatically unfair practices set out in the Bill.
The first intended use of this power is to add practices related to fake and misleading reviews following consultation during Bill passage. This will give greater clarity to business and consumers and, where fake reviews are posted, allow enforcers to take effective action quickly.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what recent assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of Tech Nation.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Department's assessment of Tech Nation is focused on the effectiveness of activities that were paid for with government grant funding, rather than on the organisation as a whole. To this end, robust monitoring and evaluation processes were in place throughout the grant-funded period to ensure taxpayers’ money was spent properly and responsibly.
In addition to monthly and quarterly monitoring, we undertook independent evaluations of our grant to Tech Nation, as per Government requirements. The most recent published assessment of Tech Nation’s activities funded by the Department was published in October 2020.
In November 2022, we commissioned an economic consultancy to undertake a second independent evaluation of our grant funding to Tech Nation. This evaluation will cover the 20/21-22/23 funding period and will assess the impact of the grant, in addition to capturing lessons learned from the Tech Nation programmes. The report's findings will be published in due course.
We thank Tech Nation for their valuable work over the years and their lasting impact on the UK tech sector.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment her Department has made of the safety of human-level machine learning systems; and what steps she is taking to support AI safety research.
Answered by Paul Scully
To address the potential risks and opportunities presented by AI technology, the Office for AI is working at pace to develop a White Paper setting out our position on regulating AI.
Our starting point is that the best way to realise the full economic and societal potential of AI is through a context-based approach to regulation, leveraging the sector expertise of our world-class regulators and focusing on real risks arising from the use of AI rather than the technology itself. This approach will establish a framework based on a set of cross-cutting principles to inform how regulators should tackle risks.
As indicated by our policy statement in July 2022, we will ensure our approach to AI regulation is risk based, proportionate, and adaptable. Our approach will also look for ways to ensure effective horizon scanning, to monitor both immediate and long term AI risks. We will also make sure we deploy the full range of non-regulatory tools to support effective governance – including technical standards and assurance.
In October 2022, we launched the AI Standards Hub, led by the Alan Turing Institute, to amplify the UK’s voice in the development of global technical standards for responsible AI. The Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation have also set out their AI Assurance roadmap which aims to build an ecosystem for AI assurance.
Alongside this, the Government provides funding via UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) for academic research, and last year, the Arts and Humanities Research Council announced £8.5m funding for research towards safe and ethical AI.
Together, Government funding will ensure that the UK remains at the forefront of AI research globally – with research from the UK the third most cited globally, behind only the US and China.