Clause 22 - Prohibition on disclosure of information
Gender Recognition Bill [Lords]
3:00 pm
Mr David Lammy (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs; Tottenham, Labour)
The Bill contains protections for the privacy of transsexual people, and those protections prevent harm to the transsexual person or to their family and friends from the disclosure of information by those who have received it in an official capacity. As the information in question is sensitive personal information, disclosure without the consent of the person in question must be restricted. Otherwise, we
would fail to respect the person's right to respect for private life under article 8 of the European convention on human rights.
Clause 22 has an important limit, and the amendment addresses that limit. Not only does it enumerate a list of exceptions that allow disclosure when that is justified in terms of public policy, it extends only to information that is required in an official capacity. The amendment seeks to expand clause 22 to cover all information, even that acquired in a private capacity. There are numerous examples of legislative prohibitions that apply to official or public bodies and individuals acting in an official capacity, but not in the private sphere. Data protection legislation is one example. That does not mean that the conduct is right when it occurs in the private sphere and wrong in the official sphere. Rather, it confirms that the law has limits and that those limits are imposed in law due to considerations of liberty and practicality.
The state should not, for the most part, seek to interfere in the content of conversations that take place between friends and neighbours in coffee shops and living rooms. Clause 22 does not seek to intrude into the private sphere.
A prohibition that extended—
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
On resuming—