Member

As the Committee knows, under the Bill’s provisions an authorised person may extract biometric information from anyone, including a child—although, as I have just said, a responsible adult should be present in the case of an under 16 year-old—if the Government are facilitating their exit to a third country and that person would need leave to enter the UK. That might include facial scans and fingerprints, which can be kept for five years. I note that national security, as well as immigration, nationality and law enforcement, is cited as the justification for this. It may well be that in some cases that is legitimate—I have a completely open mind about that. But the Government must bear in mind their convention duties to collect and retain such information in a proportionate and foreseeable manner. What safeguards are being put in place to ensure that it will not be misused? Are the Government truly confident that, with the use of automatic processing, the safeguards are actually adequate? Our obligations are clear: blanket and indiscriminate retention is not acceptable under the international commitments to which we have committed ourselves, and we have obligations under Article 49 of the UK GDPR.