Clause 29 - Unauthorised disclosure of information
Identity Cards Bill
5:30 pm
Patrick Mercer (Shadow Minister (Homeland Security), (Assisted By Shadow Law Officers); Newark, Conservative)
This clause is important. It deals with unauthorised disclosure of information, and I for one am happy to see such a clause in the Bill, because I have no doubt that it will provide some reassurance to the agencies that will have to deal with confidential information. However, the conundrum in the clause is whether we are talking only about someone who is guilty of giving information unlawfully or whether there is a place for someone who believes that he is working for an organisation that has become corrupt or has individuals within it who are corrupt and needs to blow the whistle. To that end, we have tabled a number of similar amendments in respect of the clause.
Subsection (1) states:
“A person is guilty of an offence if, without lawful authority—
(a)he provides any person with information that he is required to keep confidential; or
(b)he otherwise makes a disclosure of any such information.”
The amendments would simply insert in paragraph (a) the phrase “knowingly or recklessly” in respect of providing any person with information and in paragraph (b) the same phrase in respect of the person’s otherwise making a disclosure of any such information.
The amendments would move the burden to defend the person who acts in such a way without being in full possession of the facts. We all talk regularly to journalists and we all know how easy it is to give information that we do not necessarily mean to give away and might subsequently be damaging. Are we saying that, in such circumstances, an individual working on the register or the card will be guilty if he gives away information without lawful authority? We want to introduce a defence in the proviso “knowingly or recklessly” in both cases. If we do that, the amendments, along with the defence in subsection (4), which I suspect we will discuss later, would make it quite clear that only persons who act “knowingly or recklessly” would be liable to be prosecuted under the provision. I hope that the Under-Secretary will see the common sense behind that proposal.