European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am not quite sure to whom the noble Lord’s question was directed. However, I shall be so presumptuous as to attempt to reply. There is no authority, as he puts it; the data will concern things that happen in Europe, or people in Europe. It will be European data that we want to protect if they are shared, in the case of the CFSP, with other countries—particularly the United States. With regard to the CFSP it would be narrowly drawn and might relate to things done under foreign policy, which at the moment include terrorist listing and financing and that sort of thing, given that national security and intelligence are outside the EU purview altogether and is reserved to member states. The data are not handed over to some authority; they may be handed over to the authorities of a third country, but the idea is to ensure that when they are handed over they are protected by the data protection rules and that, therefore, we can have some confidence in that regard. That will be monitored by all the 27 separate national data protection supervisors—which in our case is called the Information Commissioner. I hope that that is clear.