M

Member

Speaking in the House of Lords on 21 January 2025

Debate

Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Contribution

Before I sit down, I wanted to acknowledge that the AI action plan recommends in many places making it easier for organisations, including commercial companies, to access datasets, but it is silent on how citizens might be able to access and share their data collectively. Instead, it appears to assume that data mining is something that will happen to them, rather than by them or on their behalf. Matt Clifford, its author, is an AI tech investor. While there is much on which to agree with him when it comes to skills or investment in infrastructure, the relentless tech sector viewpoint, rather than that of worker, creator, citizen or child, is a weakness in itself and a problem in its timing. Those of us who would most like to be supportive of the UK being a tech-enabled nation find the needs of our communities and fellow citizens unserved by this unbridled tech utopianism that both recent history and some of the sector’s greatest innovators would suggest is very unwise. I beg to move.

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