Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that the data sharing treaty between the UK and the US, which was laid before the House on 7 October 2019, will not maintain people's individual privacy.

The UK US Agreement is a Data Access Agreement.

This Agreement does not provide access to any data which is not already available via Mutual Legal Assistance, or in the case of Investigatory Powers, any data which would not have been available from a communications service provider if they were based in the UK. It simply ensures that data can be accessed more quickly.

The safeguards in the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 and the Crime (Overseas Productions Order) Act 2019 govern the application and issuing of request for orders to obtain data. These include tests that the data requested is necessary and proportionate.