Baroness Kidron (CB)

My Lords, in moving Amendment 2 I will speak to Amendments 3, 4, 25, 42 and 43, all of which are in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. The very detailed arguments for Amendments 25, 42 and 43 were made during the DPDI Bill and can be found at col. GC 89 of vol. 837 of Hansard, and the subsequent arguments for their inclusion in this Bill were made in Committee at col. GC 454. For that reason, I do not propose to make them in full again. I simply say that these amendments for data communities represent a more ambitious and optimistic view of the Bill that would empower citizens to use data law to benefit those with common interests. The example I gave last time was of gig workers assigning their data rights to an expert third party to see whether they were being fairly compensated. That is not something that any individual data subject can easily do alone. The new Amendments 2, 3 and 4 demonstrate how the concept of data communities might work in relation to the Government’s smart data scheme. Amendment 2 would add enacting data rights to the list of actions that the Secretary of State or the Treasury can enable an authorised person to take on behalf of customers. Amendment 3 requires the Secretary of State or the Treasury to include data communities in the list of those who would be able to activate rights, including data rights on a customer’s behalf. Amendment 4 provides a definition of “data communities”. Data communities are a process by which one data holder can assign their rights for a given purpose to a community of people who agree with that purpose. I share the Government’s desire to empower consumers and to promote innovation, and these amendments would do just that. Allowing the sharing of data rights of individuals, as opposed to specific categories of data, would strengthen the existing proposal and provide economic and social benefit to the UK and its citizens, rather than imagining that the third party is always a commercial entity. In response to these amendments in Committee, the then Minister said two things. The first was that the UK GDPR does not prevent data subjects authorising third parties to exercise certain rights on their behalf. She also warmly said that something of this kind was being planned by government and invited me and other noble Lords to discuss this area further. I made it clear that I would like such a meeting, but it has only just been scheduled and is planned for next week, which clearly does not meet the needs of the House, since we are discussing this today. I would be grateful if the current Minister could undertake to bring something on this subject back at Third Reading if we are not reassured by what we hear at the meeting. While the UK GDPR does not prevent data subjects authorising third parties to exercise certain rights on their behalf, in the example I gave the Minister in Committee it took many years and a bespoke agreement between the ICO and Uber for the 300-plus drivers to combine their data. Under equivalent GDPR provisions in European law, it required a Court of Appeal judgment in Norway before Uber conceded that it was entitled to the data on the drivers’ behalf. A right that cannot be activated without legal action and years of effort is not a right fully given; the UK GDPR is not sufficient in these circumstances. I want to stress that these amendments are not simply about contesting wrongs. Introducing the concept of data communities would facilitate innovation and promote fairness, which is surely an aim of the legislation.