My Lords, it is a pleasure to open the second day on Report on the Data (Use and Access) Bill. In doing so, I declare my technology interests as set out in the register, not least as an adviser to Socially Recruited, an AI business. In moving Amendment 38 in my name, I will not speak to any other amendments in this group.
Amendment 38 goes to the heart of the issue du jour: regulators have seldom been so much in the press and in the public eye. As the press would have it, they were hauled into No. 11 just a few days ago, but this speaks to what we want from our regulators across our economy and society. At their best, our regulators are the envy of the world. Just consider the FCA when we did the fintech regulatory sandbox: as a measure of success, it was replicated in well over 50 jurisdictions around the world.
We know how to do right-sized regulation and how to set up our regulators to succeed to do that most difficult of tasks—to balance innovation, economic growth, and consumers’ and citizens’ rights. That is what all regulators should be about. It is not straightforward; it is complex but entirely doable.
Amendment 38 simply proposes wording to assist the Information Commissioner’s Office. When it comes to the economic growth duty—“#innovation”—it simply refers back to Section 108 of the 2015 Act. I believe that bringing this clarity into the Bill will assist the regulator and enable all the conversations that are rightly going on right now, and all the plans that are being produced and reported on, such as those around AI, to be properly discussed and given proper context, with an Information Commissioner’s Office that is supported through clarity as to its responsibilities and obligations when it comes to economic growth. In simple terms, this would mean that these responsibilities are restricted and clearly set out according to Section 108 of the 2015 Act. It is critical that this should be the case if we are to have clarity around the commissioner’s independence as a supervisory authority on data protection, an absolutely essential condition for EU adequacy decisions.
I look forward to the Minister’s response. I hope that he likes my drafting. I hope that he will accept and incorporate my amendment into the Bill. I look forward to the debate. I beg to move.