Coroners and Justice Bill
2:59 pm
Richard Thomas: That was certainly not in our contemplation. We are clear, and we said somewhere in the report, that any data-sharing arrangement would remain subject to human rights legislation and to the full data protection legislation. It did not cross our mind that this would be used to amend the Data Protection Act.
We are crystal clear that the Act as whole, not least because of European requirements, would still apply to a data-sharing arrangement. As to whether that needs to be spelled out, I can see some advantage in making it absolutely explicit that any data-sharing order should remain subject to the Data Protection Act. In clause 152, there is already proposed new section 50A(7), which says:
“Nothing in this section (or any information-sharing order) is to be taken to prejudice any power or duty to share information which exists apart from this section.”
So, it is safeguarding previous data-sharing powers. That could easily be complemented by an extra subsection spelling it out clearly that the full application of the data protection requirements remains.