If it is to become law the amendment will need to be approved by
MPs in the House of Commons. The Government opposed the amendment
but was defeated by 134 votes to 130.
The amendment would make it a criminal offence to "intentionally
or recklessly disclose information contained in personal data to
another person, repeatedly and negligently allow information to be
contained in personal data to be disclosed, or intentionally or
recklessly fail to comply with [their] duties".
"Data controllers currently do not face anything like adequate
sanctions if they intentionally or recklessly disclose information,
or indeed are repeatedly negligent," said Liberal Democrat peer
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer, introducing the amendment.
"Goodness knows, this is not exactly a new issue. The Government
have had time to address it. In 2002 in another place [the House of
Commons] my honourable friend Paul Burstow revealed that a total of
1,354 government-owned computers had gone missing over the previous
five years, while much more recently, as noble Lords will be aware,
vast amounts of data, whether from Her Majesty’s Revenue and
Customs or the health sector, have been lost," she said.
"The issue has been around for a long time, and not only in
government sectors. The private sector, as we know, can be
negligent, and it can do all sorts of things with data that it
should not do. Both the public and private sectors need to be
covered by further sanctions, which is the reason for our
amendment," said Miller.
Until recently The Bill contained a clause that would introduce
jail sentences of up to two years for people who steal or sell
personal data, but the Government has decided not to activate that
clause of the law.
The new amendment would create a new offence, but Government
minister Lord Hunt of Kings Heath opposed the change, saying that
the Government wanted to wait until it had reviewed past problems
with data loss before legislating.
"The Government are involved in a number of reviews on these
matters in the light of some of the well publicised incidents that
have taken place," he said. "Just as noble Lords usually say that
the legislation I bring forward is premature and has not had enough
consideration, I have to say that that is our position at the
moment."
"The Government recognise the genuine and legitimate concerns
expressed by noble Lords both in this debate and in Committee, but
a number of imminent reviews and reports will inform both the
actions that the Government have to take as a Government and
whether legislative changes should be made. That is why we think it
would be premature to legislate at this point," he said.
Miller said that the public could not afford a wait. "Basically
the public will have to continue with this lack of protection for
at least another year or two, during which time, at the rate of the
past 12 months, millions more pieces of data will have gone
missing," she said.
The Conservative Party proposed a weaker amendment which would
only apply to public bodies or workers on contract to the public
sector, but Miller said that it was a false distinction. "Citizens
do not mind who lost the data; it is irrelevant to them. What is
important is that it is their data that have been sold, lost or
left on rubbish heaps and it is they who are affected by it," she
said.
The Information Commissioner Richard Thomas has previously
called for a law that would punish people or organisations that put
other people's personal data at risk. In January the Parliamentary
Justice Committee backed Thomas's calls for such a law.
