During the following week of the Labour Conference I am taking a keen interest as what Charles Clarke MP, serial critic of Gordon Brown, says. Whether, for example, he talks about “integrity”, “transparency” or “accountability” - that kind of stuff. “Ahhhh”, I can hear you say, “this is proof positive that Chris really needs to get out more”. But you would be wrong; the issue affects us all as it strikes at what Parliamentary accountability really means.
One example should suffice. In all the early public consultation documents about the ID Card database (the National Identity Register), the Government said something like "None of this information (in the Register)...falls within the category of sensitive personal data". These public reassurances were reversed by an amendment tabled by Mr Clarke at the Report stage of the ID Card Bill. However, Mr Clarke’s failed to mention this reversal and the explanations given to Parliament for this amendment do not even pass the minimal threshold of being “economical with the truth”.
To understand this position, you must look at section 1(5) and 1(6) of the ID Cards Act. S.1(5) provides a list of data types to be stored in the Register; it states that "In this Act “registrable fact”, in relation to an individual, means—
(a) his identity;
(b) the address of his principal place of residence in the United Kingdom;
(c) the address of every other place in the United Kingdom or elsewhere where he has a place of residence;
(d) where in the United Kingdom and elsewhere he has previously been resident;
(e) the times at which he was resident at different places in the United Kingdom or elsewhere;
(f) his current residential status;
(g) residential statuses previously held by him;
(h) information about numbers allocated to him for identification purposes and about the documents to which they relate;(my emphasis)
(i) information about occasions on which information recorded about him in the Register has been provided to any person; and
(j) information recorded in the Register at his request.
S.1(6) says "But the registrable facts falling within subsection (5)(h) do not include any sensitive personal data (within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 1998 (c. 29)) or anything the disclosure of which would tend to reveal such data". For convenience, that is why I italicised the relevant subsection above.
Government Ministers explained the purpose of the clause was to “to rule out the use of sensitive personal data” in the Register (Hansard, 18 Oct 2005, Column 741) whilst Mr Clarke added at Third Reading (Hansard, 18 Oct 2005, Column 799) that the Register would not contain “criminal convictions, financial records or political or religious opinions” and that the purpose of the amendment was “that it will not be possible to add a police national computer number to the register”.
Both these statements to Parliament are clearly wrong, as can be seen through the asking yourself a simple question: “If section 1(5)(h) cannot contain sensitive personal data by law, what does a specific exclusion limited to 1(5)(h) imply for all the other sub-sections 1(5)(a)-(j) (except (h))?”. Do you see that all these categories now might contain now sensitive personal data, because if the exclusion in 1(5)(h) was meant to apply to more subsections, the amendment tabled by Mr Clarke would have specified these other subsections?
Was this explained to Parliament? Of course not. In my opinion, Charles Clarke MP was in charge of the ID Card Bill when Parliament was repeatedly misled as to the purpose of the Register, and this explains why I am listening out for what Mr. Clarke’s says.
(Readers who want to know the full extent of the numerous times that Parliament was misled or ill-informed should read: “Evidence to the Constitution Committee in its inquiry into the Surveillance Society (Parts 1 and especially Part 2)” on www.amberhawk.com”).
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