Viscount Camrose (Con)

I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for introducing this group and for bringing these important and sometimes very difficult matters to the attention of the House. I will address the amendments slightly out of order, if I may. For digital verification services to work, the information they have access to and use to verify documents must be accurate; this is, needless to say, critical to the success of the entire scheme. Therefore, it is highly sensible for Amendment 8 to require public authorities, when they disclose information via the information gateway, to ensure that it is accurate and reliable and that they can prove it. By the same measure, Amendment 6, which requires the Secretary of State to assess whether the public authorities listed are collecting accurate information, is equally sensible. These amendments as a pair will ensure the reliability of DVS services and encourage the industry to flourish. I would like to consider the nature of accurate information, especially regarding an individual’s biological sex. It is possible for an individual to change their recorded sex on their driving licence or passport, for example, without going through the process of obtaining a gender recognition certificate. Indeed, a person can change the sex on their birth certificate if they obtain a GRC, but many would argue that changing some words on a document does not change the reality of a person’s genome, physical presentation and, in some cases, medical needs, meaning that the information recorded does not accurately relate to their sex. I urge the Minister to consider how best to navigate this situation, and to acknowledge that it is crucially important, as we have heard so persuasively from the noble Earl, Lord Errol, and my noble friends Lord Arbuthnot and Lord Lucas, that a person’s sex is recorded accurately to facilitate a fully functioning DVS system. The DVS trust framework has the potential to rapidly transform the way identities and information are verified. It should standardise digital verification services, ensure reliability and build trust in the concept of a digital verification service. It could seriously improve existing, cumbersome methods of verifying information, saving companies, employers, employees, landlords and tenants time and money. Personally, I have high hopes of its potential to revolutionise the practices of recruitment. I certainly do not know many people who would say no to less admin. If noble Lords are minded to test the opinion of the House, we will certainly support them with respect to Amendments 6 and 8. With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, I think it is a mistake to regard this as part of some culture war struggle. As I understand it, this is about accuracy of data and the importance, for medical and other reasons, of maintaining accurate data. All the benefits of DVS cannot be to the detriment of data privacy and data minimisation. Parliament is well-practised at balancing multiple competing concepts and doing so with due regard to public opinion. Therefore, Amendment 7 is indeed a sensible idea. Finally, Amendment 9 would require the Secretary of State to review whether an offence of false use of identity documents created or verified by a DVS provider is needed. This is certainly worth consideration. I have no doubt that the Secretary of State will require DVS providers to take care that their services are not being used with criminal intent, and I am quite sure that DVS service providers do not want to facilitate crimes. However, the history of technology is surely one of high-minded purposes corrupted by cynical practices. Therefore, it seems prudent for the Secretary of State to conduct a review into whether creating this offence is necessary and, if it is, the best way that it can be laid out in law. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on this and other matters.