Government says data sharing should extend to the private sector

The Government claims that the move will help the public sector to deliver its services; but it is likely to heighten concern amongst civil liberties campaigners already upset by the amount of information the Government is gathering about citizens.

More controversially it proposes more sharing of information with the private sector. Echoing the proposal of a recent green paper consultation from the Home Office, it proposes that public sector bodies use the private sector fraud database CIFAS to share information.

"Public sector membership of CIFAS would allow for information sharing on fraud between the private sector and the public sector," says the document. "The savings to the public purse have been estimated to be between approximately £137m–£273m every year."

A similar proposal was made in the Home Office's paper New Powers against Organised Crime and Financial Crime, which is open to consultation until 17th October.

CIFAS is the system commonly used by the financial services sector to identify instances of fraud. The proposal could combine information about an individual's banking details and behaviour with information about their social security and tax behaviour.

"The argument that is always made is that things like joined-up Government and putting Government online and inter-agency co-operation are dependent on quality data being shared within the public sector," said William Malcolm, a data protection specialist at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM.

"The new element here is proposing that public sector bodies join CIFAS, where they would have access to those private sector data pots, but would contribute data too," he said. The shared information would be used to help combat fraud and organised crime.

"Sharing data for fraud prevention is of course a different thing to sharing data for the purposes of service delivery," said Malcolm. "However, moves towards increased cooperation give ammunition to the privacy lobbies who paint a picture of an Orwellian society where there is one great database with everything in it."

"This Government wants to deliver the best possible support to people in need. We can only do this with the right information about people's circumstances," said Baroness Ashton, parliamentary under secretary of state at the DCA in the introduction to its vision statement. "We recognise that he more we share information, the more important it is that people are confident that their personal data is kept safe and secure. The Data Protection and Human Rights Acts offer a robust statutory framework to maintain those rights whilst sharing information to deliver better services."

The Information Commissioner has already said that he wants to see more public sector data sharing, but that privacy must be carefully guarded. "I do not want data protection to be wrongly blamed for preventing sensible information sharing, for example to detect crime, protect children at risk or prevent fraud," said Commissioner Richard Thomas in a statement when the Home Office consultation paper was launched. "Trust and confidence will be lost if information is inaccurate or out of date, if there are mistakes of identification, if information is not kept securely or if reasonable expectations of privacy are not met. And people must be told how their information is being shared and given choices wherever possible," he said.

Civil liberties group Liberty said that it is very concerned about the new plans, which it thinks may require new primary legislation to override the Data Protection Act. It said it expects concrete proposals to emerge next spring.

"This Government treats our privacy as an inconvenience rather than a fundamental right," said Gareth Crossman, Liberty’s Policy Director. "Do we really want to become a society in which we must prove why our personal details should not be shared?"