New Clause 3 - Establishment of the inspectorate of data
Police and Justice Bill
1:00 pm
Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)
That issue is often raised in relation to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. The Information Commissioner takes a broad supervisory view of how the powers are exercised, and if individuals have concerns, they can raise the question of whether their data have been subject to processing.
My more substantive concern about the hon. Lady’s suggestion of a six-monthly report before Parliament is that the police have sought the powers to enable them to build up an intelligence picture of those flights that might be of interest, particularly those that form the domestic leg of an international journey. They will have a particular interest in certain routes and passenger journeys. If they have to lay a report before Parliament about the routes that they are interested in and the kind of intelligence picture that they are trying to develop, that would in many ways defeat the purpose of what they are trying to do and could well give information and assistance to the people whom they are trying to track and have surveillance over. I find it difficult to accept that.
Clause 32(5) of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill, which will apply to international journeys, will also require that the Secretary of State should specify by order what passenger, crew and service information will be required and the manner in which that information is to be provided. In that case, Parliamentary will already be aware of the specific types of data that carriers will be required to provide and how the data are to be provided.
As I say, the police will request data on routes of operational interest that have been subject to a threat and risk assessment. They would not necessarily want that information to be made publicly available. I have assured the hon. Lady that this is not a power through which people intend to get details of the 40 million or so journeys made in this country. It will be targeted, and carried out on the basis of the threat that is posed and there will be risk assessments of the routes on which data is sought.