Statistics and Registration Service Bill

moved Amendment No. 187: 187: Clause 36, page 16, line 8, at end insert ““, and (c) appropriate safeguards to guarantee adequate data protection for the relevant personal information.”” The noble Earl said: The amendment’s clear purpose is to ensure that approved researchers are bound by adequate data protection safeguards, not least so that such individuals are fully cognisant of the legal requirement to maintain confidentiality in respect of raw data. I have absolutely no difficulty with such individuals being granted access to personal information by the board. Indeed, such a provision can be interpreted as both necessary and beneficial in generating an effective and useful statistical product. That said, given the nature and scope of the raw data that will potentially be disclosed to them, it seems entirely appropriate that a strong and robust analysis of the data protection safeguards with which approved researchers would need to comply should be an element of the criteria that the board considers. As I suggested at Second Reading, I can be reasonably certain that the Minister will pray in aid the defence that the Data Protection Act applies in any event. However, as I argued elsewhere, the protections afforded by the DPA are not necessarily as robust as they may seem, not least because the technological landscape has changed so dramatically since it was enacted some 10 years ago. Quite apart from that, the massive scope of personal information now encompassed by administrative data requires that regimes protecting it should be as robust as possible, even more so than those in the private sector. Accordingly, I believe the belt-and-braces approach that is intrinsic in the amendment to be both necessary and sensible. I beg to move.