53: Clause 14, page 27, line 21, leave out “is, or”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, along with others in the name of Lord Clement-Jones, would retain the ability of the Secretary of State to introduce new safeguards but would prevent the removal or variation of safeguards under the new UK GDPR Article 22D and the new section 50D of the 2018 Act.
My Lords, once more into the trenches we go before Easter. In moving Amendment 53, I will also speak to Amendments 54, 55, 57, 69, 70, 71 and 72 and the Clause 14 stand part notice.
The Bill contains a number of wide delegated powers, giving the Secretary of State the power to amend the UK GDPR via statutory instrument. The Government have said that the UK GDPR’s key elements remain sound and that they want to continue to offer a high level of protection for the public’s data, but that is no guarantee against significant reforms being brought in through a process that eludes full parliamentary scrutiny through primary legislation. Proposed changes to the UK GDPR should be contained in the Bill, where they can be debated and scrutinised properly via the primary legislation process. As it stands, key provisions of the UK GDPR can subsequently be amended via statutory instrument, which, in this case, is an inappropriate legislative process that affords much less scrutiny and debate, if debates are held at all.
The UK GDPR treats a solely automated decision as one without “meaningful human involvement”. The public are protected from being subject to solely automated decision-making where the decision has a legal or “similarly significant effect”. Clause 14(1) inserts new Article 22D(1) into the UK GDPR, which allows the Secretary of State to make regulations that deem a decision to have involved “meaningful human involvement”, even if there was no active review by a human decision-maker. New Article 22D(2) similarly allows the Secretary of State to make regulations to determine whether a decision made had a “similarly significant effect” to a legal effect. For example, in summer 2021 there was the A-level algorithm grading scandal. If something like that were to reoccur, under this new power a Minister could lay regulations stating that the decision to use an algorithm in grading A-levels was not a decision with a “similarly significant effect”.
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 57 in my name, Amendment 59 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the Clause 14 stand part notice from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. In doing so, I register my support for Amendment 59A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes.
The Government assert that there is no diminution of rights in the Bill, yet Clause 14 removes the right not to be subject to an automated decision and replaces that right with inadequate safeguards, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said. On the previous day in Committee, the Minister made the argument that:
“These reforms clarify and simplify the rules related to solely automated decision-making without watering down any of the protections for data subjects or the fundamental data protection principles”,—[Official Report, 25/3/24; col. GC 146.]
but I hope he will at least accept that safeguards do not constitute a right. The fact that the Secretary of State has delegated powers to change the safeguards at will undermines his argument that UK citizens have lost nothing at all; they have lost the right not to be subject to an automated decision.
The fact that the Government have left some guard-rails for special category data is in itself an indication that they know they are downgrading UK data rights, because the safeguards in place are not adequate. If they were adequate, it would be unnecessary to separate out SPC data in this way. I hammer the point home by asking the Minister to explain how the protections will work in practice in an era of AI when risks can come from inference and data analytics that do not use special category data but will still have a profound impact on the work lives, health, finances and opportunities of data subjects. If it is the case that data about your neighbourhood, shopping habits, search results, steps or entertainment choices is used to infer an important decision, how would a data subject activate their rights in that case?
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Amendment 57 in my name would prevent the Secretary of State making any amendments to new Articles 22A, 22B or 22C if such amendments reduce, minimise or undermine the existing standards and protections for children’s data. I hope I have made it clear that I am not setting myself against automated decision-making. Training a model using thousands of scans of people’s lungs can enhance a doctor’s ability to identify potential tumours accurately. Nor do I wish for children to miss out on the benefits of such technology, as the Minister appeared to suggest last week—merely that it should be deployed only when it is in their best interests, as discussed in our debate on the previous group.
Moreover, if the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is successful in his desire that Clause 14 should not stand part of the Bill, this amendment and Amendment 46 will be unnecessary, but noble Lords will recognise a steady drum beat of resistance against the Government’s plans to change data rights to benefit the commercial interests of tech companies at the expense of children.
In his answer relating to legitimate interests, the Minister pointed out that, when amending or adding to Annexe 1, the Secretary of State already has a duty to have regard to
“the need to provide children with special protection with regard to their personal data”.
Unless the Minister can tell me otherwise, I believe that is the only instance where she is required to do so when exercising her powers. So there is a place for some of the broader amendments from the second group that speak to the status of children throughout the Bill. I remind the Minister of my suggestion that recital 38 be put on the face of the Bill, as the Government have done with so many other recitals to give “legal certainty” or “clarity”.
Irrespective of that wider point, I trust that the Minister will at least agree with me that having regard to something is quite different from ensuring something. There is a difference between a vague notion that all is changed but nothing diminished and the certainty demanded by the children’s amendments. I ask the Minister to be certain when he replies to address the question of whether “having regard” is the same bar as “ensuring no diminution of standards”.
My Lords, as is so often the case on these issues, it is daunting to follow the noble Baroness as she has addressed the issues so comprehensively. I speak in support of Amendment 57, to which I have added my name, and register my support for my noble friend Lord Holmes’s Amendment 59A, but I will begin by talking about the Clause 14 stand part notice.
Unfortunately, I was not able to stay for the end of our previous Committee session so I missed the last group on automated decision-making; I apologise if I cover ground that the Committee has already covered. It is important to start by saying clearly that I am in favour of automated decision-making and the benefits that it will bring to society in the round. I see from all the nodding heads that we are all in the same place—interestingly, my Whip is shaking his head. We are trying to make sure that automated decision-making is a force for good and to recognise that anything involving human beings—even automated decision-making does, because human beings create it—has the potential for harm as well. Creating the right guard-rails is really important.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, until I understood the Bill a bit better, I mistakenly thought that the Government’s position was not to regulate AI. But that is exactly what we are doing in the Bill, in the sense that we are loosening regulation and the ability to make use of automated decision-making. While that may be the right answer, I do not think we have thought about it in enough depth or scrutinised it in enough detail. There are so few of us here; I do not think we quite realise the scale of the impact of this Bill and this clause.
I too feel that the clause should be removed from the Bill—not because it might not ultimately be the right answer but because this is something that society needs to debate fully and comprehensively, rather than it sneaking into a Bill that not enough people, either in this House or the other place, have really scrutinised.
I apologise and thank the noble Lord for his collegiate approach.
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New Article 22D(4) also allows the Secretary of State to add or remove, via regulations, any of the listed safeguards for automated decision-making. If the Government wish to amend or remove safeguards on automated decision-making, that should also be specified in the Bill and not left to delegated legislation. Amendments 53 to 55 and 69 to 72 would limit the Secretary of State’s power, so that they may add safeguards but cannot vary or remove those in the new Article 22D, as they stand, when the legislation comes into force.
If the clause is to be retained, we support Amendment 59A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, which requires the Information Commissioner’s Office to develop guidance on the interpretation of the safeguards in new Article 22C and on important terms such as “similarly significant effect” and “meaningful human involvement”. It is within the Information Commissioner’s Office’s duties to issue guidance and to harmonise the interpretation of the law. As the dedicated regulator, the ICO is best placed and equipped to publish guidance and ensure consistency of application.
As a way to increase protections and incorporate more participation from those affected, Amendment 59A would add a new paragraph (7) to new Article 22D, which specifies that the Secretary of State needs to consult with the Information Commissioner’s Office if developing regulations. It also includes an obligation for the Secretary of State to consult with data subjects or their representatives, such as trade union or civil society organisations, at least every two years from the commencement of the Bill.
Our preference is for Clause 14 not to stand part of the Bill. The deployment of automated decision-making under Clause 14 risks automating harm, including discrimination, without adequate safeguards. Clause 14 creates a new starting point for all ADM using personal, but not special category, data. It is allowed, including for profiling, provided that certain safeguards are in place. The Minister said those safeguards are “appropriate” and “robust” and provide “certainty”, but I preferred what the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said about the clause:
“We need more safeguards. We have moved from one clear position to another, which can be described as watering down or shifting the goalposts”.—[Official Report, 25/3/24; col. GC 150.]
That is very much my feeling about the clause as well.
I refer back to the impact assessment, which we discussed at some point during our discussions about Clause 9. It is very interesting that, in table 15 of the impact assessment, the savings on compliance costs are something like £7.3 million as regards AI and machine learning, which does not seem a very big number compared with the total savings on compliance costs, which the Government have put rather optimistically at £295 million.
In passing, I should say that, when I look at the savings regarding subject access requests, I see that the figure is £153 million, which is half of those so-called savings on compliance costs. I do not square that at all with what the Minister says about the total savings on compliance costs for subject access requests being 1%. I do not know quite where those figures come from, but it is a far more significant percentage: it is 50% of what the Government believe that the savings on compliance costs will be. I know that it is not part of this group, but I would be very grateful if the Minister could write to clarify that issue in due course.
Although the Minister has called these adequate, we believe that they are inadequate for three reasons. First, they shift the burden to the individual. Secondly, there is no obligation to provide any safeguards before the decision is made. Neither the Bill nor any of the material associated with it indicates what the content of this information is expected to be, nor the timescales in which that information is to be given. There is nothing to say when representations or contest may be heard, when human intervention may be sought or the level of that intervention. Thirdly, the Secretary of State has delegated powers to vary the safeguards by regulations.
Article 22 is currently one of the strongest prohibitions in the GDPR. As we know, the current starting point is that using solely automated decision-making is prohibited unless certain exemptions apply. The exemptions are limited. Now, as a result of the Government’s changes, you can use solely automated decision-making in an employment context in the UK, which you cannot do in the EU. That is a clear watering down of the restriction. The Minister keeps returning to the safeguards, but I have referred to those. We know that they are not being applied in practice even now and that hiring and firing is taking place without any kind of human review.
There is therefore an entirely inadequate basis on which we can be satisfied that the Bill will safeguard individuals from harmful automated decision-making before it is too late. In fact, the effect of the Bill will be to do the opposite: to permit unfair and unsafe ADM to occur, including discriminatory profiling ADM, which causes harm to individuals. It then places the burden on the individual to complain, without providing for any adequate safeguards to guarantee their ability to do so before the harm is already incurred. While I beg to move Amendment 53, our preference would be that Clause 14 is deleted from the Bill entirely.
As an illustration of this point, the daughter of a colleague of mine, who, as it happens, has a deep expertise in data law, this year undertook a video-based interview for a Russell group university with no human contact. It was not yet an ADM system, but we are inching ever closer to it. Removing the right, as the Government propose, would place the onus on students to complain or intervene—in a non-vexatious manner, of course. Will the Minister set out how UK citizens will be protected from life-changing decisions after government changes to Article 22, particularly as, in conjunction with other changes such as subject access requests and data impact assessments, UK citizens are about to have fewer routes to justice and less transparency of what is happening to their data?
I would also be grateful if the Minister could speak to whether he believes that the granularity and precision of current profiling deployed by AI and machine learning is sufficiently guaranteed to take this fundamental right away. Similarly, I hope that the known concerns about bias and fairness in ADM will be resolved over time, but we are not there yet, so why is it that the Government have a wait-and-see policy on regulation but are not offering the same “wait and see” in relation to data rights?
On Amendment 59 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, the number of workers anticipated to be impacted by AI is simply eye-watering. In last Friday’s debate on AI, it was said to be 300 million worldwide, and one in four across Europe. But how workers work with AI is not simply a scary vision of the near future; it is here now.
I have a family member who last year left an otherwise well-paid and socially useful job when they introduced surveillance on to his computer during his working from home. At the time, he said that the way in which it impacted on both his self-esteem and autonomy was so devastating that he felt like
“a cog in a machine or an Amazon worker with no agency or creativity”.
He was an exemplary employee: top of the bonus list and in all measurable ways the right person in the right job. Efficiency in work has a vital role but it is not the whole picture. We know that, if able and skilled workers lose their will to work, it comes at a considerable cost to the well-being of the nation and the public purse. Most jobs in future will involve working with or even collaborating with technology; ensuring that work is dignified and fair to the human components of this arrangement is not a drag on productivity but a necessity if society is to benefit from changes to technology.
I assume I am going to lose that argument, so I will briefly talk about Amendment 57. Even if the Government remain firm that there is “nothing to see here” in Clause 14, we know that automated decision-making can do irreparable harm to children. Any of us who has worked on child internet safety—most of us have worked on it for at least a decade—regret that we failed to get in greater protections earlier. We know of the harm done to children because there have not been the right guard-rails in the digital world. We must have debated together for hours and hours why the harms in the algorithms of social media were not expressly set out in the Online Safety Act. This is the same debate.
It is really clear to me that it should not be possible to amend the use of automated decision-making to in any way reduce protections for children. Those protections have been hard fought and ensure a higher bar for children’s data. This is a classic example of where the Bill reduces that, unless we are absolutely explicit. If we are unable to persuade the Government to remove Clause 14, it is essential that the Bill is explicit that the Secretary of State does not have the power to reduce data protection for children.