The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, will this week unveil plans to remove from the police national database DNA information relating to up to one million innocent people. The proposals come in the wake of the ECtHR’s judgment in Marper in December 2008 that the practice of retaining the DNA profiles of innocent people on the database constituted an unjustified interference with the Article 8 right to privacy. Privacy campaigners have welcomed this development but continue to lobby for further limitations on the database, including removing the DNA profiles for minor offenders. See further Tim Pitt-Payne’s article on the Marper judgment in the New Law Journal.
Tag: database
Super Database – Not so Super After All
The Home Secretary has this week announced that proposals to create a State run super database, which would track everyone’s use of email, internet and text messages, have been scrapped. The announcement is hardly surprising. It was always going to be difficult to persuade the public that such a database could be kept secure, particularly in light of recent high profile controversies about large scale losses of electronic personal data by government agencies. Moreover, allowing the State to develop such a vast single repository of electronic communications data was always going to raise questions as to whether the resulting interference with private rights was proportionate and was otherwise consistent with the State’s obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998. The Government has now issued a consultation paper on new plans to allow telecommunications companies to retain the communications data for a period of 12 months. See further the Home Secretary’s Ministerial Statement.
Rowntree Report on Database State
The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust has today published its report ‘The Database State’. The report purports to amount to the most comprehensive map of central government databases yet created. In total 46 databases across the major government departments were considered in the report, including, for example, the national DNA database, the national pupil database, the NHS detailed care record system and the automatic number-plate recognition system. In summary, the report concluded that:
- a quarter of the 46 databases reviewed were ‘almost certainly illegal under human rights or data protection law; that they should be scrapped or substantially redesigned’ (including, for example, the Contactpoint index of all children in England and the national DNA database – on the latter database, see further the January 2009 post on the Marper case);
- ‘more than half have significant problems with privacy or effectiveness and could fall foul of a legal challenge’ (including, for example, the NHS Summary Care Record and the National Pupil Database);
- fewer than 15% were ‘effective, proportionate and necessary with a proper legal basis for any privacy instrusions’;
- Britain was generally out of line with other developed countries as a result of its comparably greater tendancy to centralise and share records on sensitive matters like healthcare and social services; that ‘the benefits claimed for data sharing are often illusory’.
Along with the House of Lords Report on the Surveillance Society published in February 2009 (see further the February 2009 post on the Lords Report), this report is likely to increase pressure on the Government to reexamine a raft of policies on data collection, management and storage.
https://www.jrrt.org.uk/uploads/Database%20State.pdf
Executive Summary:
https://www.jrrt.org.uk/uploads/Database%20State%20-%20Executive%20Summary.pdf
Government Superdatabase
Over the last few months, there has been considerable media coverage of Government plans to introduce a new ‘superdatabase’ designed to track all internet and telephone use. The stated purpose of the database is to assist law enforcement agencies by facilitating access to information currently held by individual Telecoms companies. It is expected that the Government will publish its detailed proposals later on this month. However, the new Director of Public Prosecutions, Kier Starmer QC has already expressed the view that, provided that proper safeguards are put in place, the database would be legitimate. Mr Starmer’s assessment contrasts starkly with that of his predecessor, Sir Ken MacDonald, who expressed the view that the database would create a ‘hell-house’ of personal privae information. The Information Commissioner has previously warned that the creation of such a database would raise serious data protection concerns (see his 15 July 2008 Press Release).
Draft Communications Data Bill:
https://www.commonsleader.gov.uk/output/Page2461.asp
Information Commissioner’s Press Release
https://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/pressreleases/2008/annual_report_web_version.pdf