My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 106 in the name of and on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes. She is sorry not to be here today because of family commitments. This amendment was first debated in the other place. It was proposed by the honourable Stella Creasy based on her own experience as a victim of harassment. This experience is not unique to her. I am grateful—as I know she is too—for the support for this amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, as well as the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Brinton.
In short, if an individual makes a malicious complaint about someone to the police, the police can act to remove that record. Malicious reporting to other organisations—whether social services or an employer as part of a campaign of stalking and harassment—does not carry the same safeguard. As a result, data is retained on individuals who have been targeted maliciously, be it through workplace harassment, stalking or something else. Many victims find that, even if the person targeting them has been convicted, their harassment continues because such records remain. Current data protection rules mean that such records cannot always be deleted. The retention of this data has lasting consequences for all individuals involved.
This proposed new clause seeks to enable the deletion of data where a clear threshold is met to show that the report was the result of malice and that retaining it would continue the harassment. As the testimony of victims has shown, it is not necessary to be an MP to be subject to malicious reporting as part of a deliberate campaign of stalking and harassment. Such reporting, designed to have a serious long-term impact on victims and their families, can occur against anyone doing any kind of public work, in the context of domestic abuse or as anonymous, vexatious harassment.
Public bodies can refuse to delete the data on the grounds that they feel it necessary to retain that data for compliance with a separate legal obligation or for performing a task in the public interest. To overturn this, a person has to demonstrate that the public body’s retention of the malicious data is not necessary
for either of these purposes, thereby putting the burden of proof on to the data subject and potentially requiring lengthy court action.
For most people, this is not possible or desirable, leaving them with no legal recourse. This amendment would update the UK general data protection regulation and address these inconsistencies, mirroring the concept of exceptional circumstances under which any deletion would take place. The proposed new clause would give all data controllers guidance on how to manage situations where there are competing obligations—for example, in safeguarding or identifying repeated attacks on an individual via third-party reporting. Unlike the current right to object, this would create an absolute right to request deletion and therefore overrule exemptions that currently apply. This would ensure that public bodies such as local authorities are able to comply with these requests for deletion without risking failing to meet their legal duties. At present, these authorities are very clear that due to existing data protection rules they cannot take this step.
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For this duty to be robust and not undermine important concerns about retention of records for safeguarding purposes, there needs to be a clear threshold that is met to show that to retain the data would be to continue the harassment. By limiting this explicitly to proven victims of crimes, when the data is linked to that crime, we could ensure it does not become open to abuse—but it should extend to private companies such as employers to ensure that cases such as inappropriate employment references generated as part of discriminatory processes are not retained.
Could Ministers give serious consideration to updating the law in this regard? This Government have a strong track record on taking action against harassment, stalking and other harms against women and girls. I would like to understand why the Government do not see the need to update the law to take account of this very real situation. The retention of data in such circumstances is illiberal, oppressive and contrary to the mores of a democratic society. Therefore, I would like my noble friend the Minister not just to respond but to acknowledge that this is a serious issue that needs redress. I very much hope that, after this stage of the Bill, my noble friend the Minister will meet me, my noble friend Lady Morgan and Stella Creasy to discuss it further.