Clause 1 - Registration: provision of signature anddate of birth
Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Des Browne (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Northern Ireland Office; Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Labour)
I shall finish these points, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.
Theoretically, while it would be possible for the chief electoral officer to check national insurance numbers that were provided to him on registration, he would have to do that by accessing the departmental central index, which is part of the Inland Revenue's computer system and is the database containing all national insurance numbers. For the chief electoral officer to check all 1 million or so individuals on the electoral register in Northern Ireland, he would need direct access to the DCI. However, the national insurance details of Northern Ireland and Great Britain are kept together on the DCI. The chief electoral officer could not be granted access to only the Northern Ireland data. Therefore, he would have direct access to vast amounts of irrelevant but sensitive data, which is contrary to the principles of data protection. Hon. Members may say that that could be resolved and no doubt technologically and in terms of computers it can be. However, whether it could be resolved against the deadlines that we, and others, have set for the changes is a different matter.
We cannot dismiss the principles of data protection because one of its basic principles is that a general identifier can be used only for the purpose for which it was issued. In the case of a national insurance number that is the administration of national insurance. It seems unreasonable to amend the Data Protection Act 1984 in the time scale set, which we would have to do but is probably unachievable, to allow the chief electoral officer for Northern Ireland to have access to the national insurance numbers of electors while every elector in Northern Ireland is not entitled to, or does not have, a national insurance number. Even if we were to proceed down that route, it is unlikely that we would complete all necessary legislative and administrative changes by the target date of spring 2003, at least not at the expense of other measures. Specific legislation would be needed to amend the Data Protection Act to allow the chief electoral officer to make use of electors' national insurance numbers. In the light of those additional factors, I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn, and that hon. Members will be satisfied that it would not be sensible for national insurance numbers to be used for electoral purposes.