Clause 2 - Electronic access to information
Social Security Fraud Bill
12:30 pm
Mrs Jacqui Lait (Beckenham, Conservative)
We come to another important clause. The amendments follow some of the worries that we raised about clause 1. We want to try as far as possible to limit the famous fishing expeditions. Amendment No. 22 would insert the word ``specific'' into the clause, because ``information'' is too broad a word. Amendments Nos. 24 and 29 would substitute the word ``specified'' for the word ``particular''. Amendment No. 25, two groups down on the selection list, is based on a similar philosophy. It would narrow the opportunities for fishing expeditions. I shall refer to it now, if I may, and not speak to it later. Amendments Nos. 31 and 32 will encourage a similar debate to the one that we had earlier about the code of practice and magistrates. Amendments Nos. 33 and 34 would narrow the investigation.
The clause deals with electronic information, which is why some of our debates will be familiar. It needs tightening up. It may seem odd to those members of the Committee who know me to hear me sounding as though I know the first thing about computers and electronic information. [Hon. Members: ``Hear, hear.''] I heard that mutter.
Equally, it may seem an oddity that, before I was privileged to become our pensions spokesman, one of the aspects with which I dealt was information warfare and the use of computers to disable systems. I do not suggest that the Bill falls into that category, but I learned a fair amount about electronic systems in theory, if not in practice, and that stood me in good stead in considering the clause.
We are conscious of how electronic systems can be used and how easy it is to find information, even given the safeguards in clause 1 and the code of practice and legal constraints on investigating officers. Navigation around computer systems is relatively easy, even with firewalls and all the other security that can be built in, and people may be tempted to look for information about a specific individual or a particular individual—indeed, some of the amendments would replace the word ``particular'' with the word ``specific''.
As I anticipated semantic arguments about the difference between ``particular'' and ``specific'', I dug out my dictionary and found the definitions. According to my ``Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary'', ``particular'' means
``relating to a part: predicating of part of the class denoted by the subject . . . pertaining to a single person or thing: individual: special'',
and ``specific'', or ``specified'', means
``constituting or determining a species: pertaining to a species: peculiar to a species: of special application or origin: specifying: precise''.
I am not sure whether reading out those definitions leads to clarity on the issue, but I can just hear lawyers in a court of law, spending a large part of the time defining the difference between ``particular'' and ``specific''. In my view, ``particular'' is wider than ``specific''. To limit as far as possible the opportunities to provide information about an individual that is wider than the DSS or the Benefits Agency requires, we need—because easier, electronic access gives such freedoms—to tie down as far as possible the opportunities for investigations. That is why we tabled the amendments.