OPERATORS' LICENCES (Hansard, 4 July 1989)

§ Ms. Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford)
I beg to move amendment No. 14, in page 14, line 9 after 'danger', insert 'or nuisance'.
The Bill as drafted enables the Secretary of State to amend an operator's licence without the consent of the licence holder if a change is needed to prevent a danger to the public. The amendment would extend the power of the Secretary of State to amend the licence to cover circumstances in which the operation of a driver information system is causing a nuisance.
Throughout our proceedings on the Bill, the Opposition have voiced the concerns of local highway authorities that the introduction of Autoguide could generate two types of problem as a result of traffic being directed along unsuitable roads.—first, road safety problems and, secondly, amenity and traffic management problems, including noise and congestion. Ministers have consistently argued that it is unlikely that such problems will arise and that the pilot scheme planned for London will provide an opportunity to iron out any problems. That approach ignores the fact that, should the pilot show that Autoguide results in nuisance problems for certain communities, the Bill—which will then be an Act—will 253 contain no provision under which action can be taken by the Secretary of State, except on road safety grounds alone.
The amendment would give no extra powers to highway authorities. It does not impose any burdens on Autoguide operators. It would simply empower the Secretary of State to act if amenity or traffic problems arose as a result of the introduction of Autoguide, as we suspect they may.

§ Mr. Peter Bottomley
The House is grateful to the hon. Lady for the way in which she introduced the amendment. For those in a legal frame of mind who read the amendment, she has made it clear that we are talking about loss of amenity, rather than nuisance, which has a particular legal meaning. As the House knows, the Government's view is that driver information systems, such as Autoguide, should be operated and financed by the private sector. Development will require heavy capital investment. Operators will be prepared to go ahead with such schemes only if they can be confident that, once awarded, a licence cannot be amended by the Secretary of State without the operator's consent. That approach is reflected generally in part II.
Clause 10(6) breaches that principle in one respect. It enables the Secretary of State, without the consent of the licence holder, to attach new conditions if they are designed to prevent danger to the public. The House will take the view that in such circumstances there should be a clear and overriding need to amend a licence.
However, the amendment would go further. It would provide that the Secretary of State could unilaterally alter a licence to prevent a nuisance, in the common sense view, which would leave the operator in uncertainty about the circumstances in which the Secretary of State might use that power. The effect would probably be to deter operators from seeking licences and consequently to the loss of the benefit of driver information systems such as Autoguide. In asking the House not to accept the amendment, I must make it plain that I cannot envisage circumstances in which there would be a serious loss of amenity, or other unbearable or undesirable conditions, where there was not also a diminution of safety. For all practical purposes, the power in clause 10(6) will probably meet the hon. Lady's aim.
I ask the House not to accept the amendment. The hon. Lady has made a serious point, but her proposal can be encompassed within the provisions on safety. I doubt whether noise would ever be a problem on its own. Noise would be produced by a lot of traffic using an unsuitable road and that would have an effect on safety, too. If there were no pedestrians at all, the road would probably be a motorway, in which case it would probably be outside a city or town.

§ Ms. Ruddock
I thank the Minister for his comments. I know that highway authorities will take note of them and I hope that they will accept that he is, in a sense, making the offer that if there is a nuisance of the sort that we have described, they will be able to take the matter up on the road safety grounds specified in the Bill. That is extremely important and goes a small way to meeting my points. In view of that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
254 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Mr. Cohen
I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 15, line 1, leave out 'may be required to be furnished to the Secretary of State under subsection (8)(f) above' and insert 'shall be disclosed by the operator to any person'.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean)
With this it will be convenient to consider amendment No. 2, in clause 11, page 15, line 13, at end insert 'or (c) driver information has been used, collected, obtained or disclosed in a way that is unrelated to the operation of the system.'.

§ Mr. Cohen
I will take a little longer on these amendments. The implication of amendment No. 2 is that the abuse of driver information can be punished by loss of licence and the acquisition of a criminal record by the company, such as Autoguide. It will place a limitation on cavalier operators who could be tempted to make a fast buck by using driver information for other purposes. Amendment No. 2 will force operators to be careful about how they use driver information and any misuse of it could be a breach of the conditions for obtaining an operator's licence. Amendment No. 2 will allow the licence to be revoked if there is misuse.
Amendment No. 2 will also place an onus on the Secretary of State for Transport and the Minister to specify how information is to be used, collected, obtained or disclosed in relation to the driver information system, probably in the licence granted under clause 10. The Secretary of State should give guidance to operators in that respect. Unlike the amendment that I proposed to clause 8 in Committee, which the Minister did not like because it forbade absolutely the use of driver information for any other purpose, amendment No. 2 is a halfway house to those objections.
Clause 10(6), for example, gives the Secretary of State flexibility to amend the terms and conditions associated with the granting of the licence and so provides guidance regarding the acceptable use, disclosure, collection and obtaining of information, so that they are related to the operaton of the driver information system in the licence. Amendment No. 2 would constrain such uses, disclosures, collection and obtaining so that they would be related to the operation of the system, rather than directly "relevant", which was the key word of my previous amendment. As such, it is a happy compromise and one which any reasonable Minister should be more than happy to accept.
I remind the Minister of the significance of the written answer that he gave me on 21 April in column 305 of volume 151 of Hansard, when he stated that the disclosure of personal data from Autoguide will be subject to a non-disclosure exemption under the Data Protection Act 1984. In my assessment, the legal aspect of that is positively dangerous, especially as we are dealing with a computer system that could be developed to trace the movements of individuals by tracing from and to where they drive.
10.30 pm
"Non-disclosure" is an awful piece of jargon but it means, first, that there is no restriction on the disclosure of information held in manual files. Non-automated 255 information associated with autoguide is, by definition, not covered by the Data Protection Act and can therefore be used and disclosed freely.
Secondly, it means that the disclosure of personal information from Autoguide is not subject to the requirements of the third data protection principle—that it should not be used or disclosed in any manner that is incompatible with its purpose.
Thirdly, disclosures of personal information from Autoguide need not be registered with the data protection registrar. Fourthly, Autoguide information is not subject to the enforcement powers of the registrar in relation to all eight of the data protection principles.
In Committee, the Minister placed great store by the Data Protection Act. However, its provisions are insufficient in respect of information from Autoguide which could be used for a purpose other than for road safety and good traffic management, which the Minister assured us on Second Reading was its sole purpose. It can be used for all sorts of other purposes. Amendment No. 2 goes some way to ensuring that information held in a driver information system cannot be abused quite so easily.
Amendment No. 1 states that Autoguide information should not be disclosed by the operator to any person". The amendment seeks to ensure that the Secretary of State, and no other person, can require information from a driver information system, such as Autoguide, in a form that can identify drivers and owners. At the moment, the Secretary of State for Transport has accepted that he would stop himself infringing privacy, but he has left it open to all other Ministers and organisations outside his control, such as the police and the security services, to be able to require the information and thus infringe privacy.
To make absolute the details of individuals whose details are recorded on driver information systems, my amendment extends the protections that the Secretary of State has given to himself to all other Secretaries of State and all governmental and other organisations. The arguments that the Secretary of State has applied to himself should surely apply to those other individuals and bodies.
I remind the Minister of his exchange with my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms. Ruddock) in Committee when she asked how an individual would know that the information had been passed on. The Minister replied: It will not be passed on to the Secretary of State. That is what the Bill says."—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 16 May 1989; c. 51.] From that exchange, it appears that it is possible for other Secretaries of State or Government bodies to obtain information from Autoguide in a form that identifies individuals. The powers granted under clause 10(8)(g) expressly authorise the Secretary of State to allow other persons to inspect records and make copies. Those records could include the owners or drivers of vehicles who pass an Autoguide detector at the start of a political demonstration. Such information might be passed on.
Such authoritarian behaviour was referred to in Committee by both my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), who said that he was held on the stolen and suspect vehicle index of the police national computer during the miners' strike, and by my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford, who said that she 256 was followed by Security Service agents because of her effective work with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. That will be encouraged by unrestricted access to Autoguide information.

§ Mr. Corbyn
In Committee there was substantial discussion about the use of such information. It was revealed that, during the miners' strike, the stolen vehicles index was used to trace cars owned by members of the National Union of Mineworkers and those who supported them on picket line duties. There is no guarantee that the Autoguide system will not be used merely to update such records and extend that information. Does my hon. Friend not think it an outrage that, rather than trying to protect civil liberties, the Minister is giving power to the Big Brother state to examine the activities of people on legitimate and legal protest?

§ Mr. Cohen
That is exactly my point, and that is the reason for the amendment. We must protect civil liberties and learn the lessons of the Big Brother state during the miners' strike. We are seeing increasing encroachments on civil liberties. We must stop new technology, such as the Autoguide system, enabling that to be carried a stage further by an authoritarian Government, which this Government have shown all the hallmarks of being.

§ Mr. Peter Bottomley
I do not know how much longer the hon. Gentleman is going to take us down this line, but I had the impression that when he went on demonstrations he wanted it to be known that he was there rather than be anonymous. If he went on a demonstration, I did not know that he went by car. If he was going to a demonstration by car, I do not know that he would want to sign up with the commercial Autoguide system to tell him which way to go. It seems that he is taking us into the realms of fantasy. If he brought us back to his amendments, we could try to answer his points and the House could decide whether he is right or wrong.

§ Mr. Cohen
The Minister treats these matters flippantly, but they are encroachments on civil liberties in a very big way. I shall show the House how such encroachments are occurring. There is the Autoguide system, whereby people's number plates can be checked and it can be discovered where they have travelled to and from; the ticket barriers on the Underground have facilities to read the season ticket strips to record people's movements; and the Home Office is developing a system called "Wizard", which is a facial recognition system that will photograph drivers and people on the move.

§ Mr. Peter Bottomley
Have a shave.

§ Mr. Cohen
Yes, it will recognise my beard, and report where I have moved to and from.
In a recent answer to me, the Minister said that travel agents and airlines will have to hand over information on people who book with them, if matters of public order or national security are involved. Those are creeping infringements of our vital civil liberty—the freedom of movement.

§ Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)
Will my hon. Friend tell us whether there is any truth in the rumour that the Autoguide or the new Wizard system will be used when the judges go out on strike again? If the judges decide that they want to spread their strike from the Royal Courts of 257 Justice to the circuit, and the police decide to put up a road block with the help of the Autoguide or the Wizard system, some miners might say that justice was being done.
Of course, other miners and myself would say that we do not believe in infringements of civil liberties, whoever they might affect. Is there anything in the rumour that, as an experiment, that equipment will be used outside the Royal Courts of Justice?

§ Mr. Cohen
There could be, if the judges upset the Government enough. However, all the signs are that the Government will cave in to that vested interest very quickly. It is more likely that that equipment will be used against the miners, railwaymen and other workers than against the judges. The Government have to keep the judges sweet so that they can punish the railwaymen and the miners in the courts.

§ Mr. Corbyn
Does my hon. Friend agree that Autoguide could be used to peel off the ringleaders among the judges from those who might be latent supporters of the Government? Is my hon. Friend also aware that the traffic monitoring scheme in London operates automatic video cameras, some of which are not pointed at the traffic? Some are pointed at Speaker's corner, some at the assembly area in Hyde park and others at the centre of Trafalgar square, where no traffic is allowed. There are many points in London where the so-called traffic information systems, designed by the Metropolitan police to monitor traffic movement, are used to monitor pedestrian, civilian movements. Those systems are part of a data-collecting agency. Does my hon. Friend agree that Autoguide could be used for the same purpose?

§ Mr. Cohen
Yes. The collection of a vast amount of data on individuals is a serious infringement of privacy. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) referred to the Wizard system, and for all I know it could have been used during the recent visit of the Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, in which case the system should have been called "The Wizard of Oz". But enough of such frivolity; this is a serious matter.

§ Mr. Moate
Given his remarkable command of such modern technology, perhaps the hon. Gentleman can explain something to me. Those who join the Autoguide system voluntarily install in their car a piece of equipment to link them to that system. How will such people be victims of a system whereby they are unknowingly scrutinised?

§ Mr. Cohen
The hon. Gentleman is correct that, initially, the system will apply to those who subscribe to it. The Government, however, want to extend the system to all motorists; for it to work properly, that must happen. In that way, the Government could cut the number of signs on roads and so on. The system, however, has the facility to read all number plates whether one is a member of it or not. That system could be linked up with Wizard for the facial recognition of drivers.

§ Mr. Skinner
Is Autoguide from West Germany?

§ Mr. Cohen
The system began in West Germany and in Committee the Minister told us that he had a ride around West Berlin in a car using the Autoguide system. He did not say whether the Germans use the Wizard system.
258 The ability to trace a person's movements is a serious infringement of civil liberties and it is part of the Big Brother state. The Minister accepted that he did not want such private information to himself, but that undertaking should also apply to other Ministers and to other Government services.

§ Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South)
I understand that the Home Office trials were conducted exclusively with equipment made in West Germany. Even if the equipment has any merit, which I doubt, it does not have the merit of adding jobs to our manufacturing industry, which, since the Tories came to power in 1979, has lost about 2 million jobs.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I am sure that the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) will remember that the amendment is concerned with disclosing names. It would not be in order for him to follow up the point that has just been made.

§ Mr. Cohen
I merely remind the House that the Minister said on Second Reading that the purpose of the system was to improve road safety and good traffic management. Unfortunately, it will let in many other purposes. If the Minister were to uphold his own words on Second Reading and in Committee, he would accept the amendment and ensure that the Bill relates only to road safety and traffic management and does not infringe privacy and civil liberties.

§ Mr. Peter Bottomley
The hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) and I may be paranoid, but that does not mean that they are not out to get us. As my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) said, it is not compulsory to join Autoguide. Even if one does join it, the system does not record the driver. If it is a matter of recording number plates, it is possible for someone to stand by the side of the road recording car number plates as though he is standing on a railway platform recording the numbers of engines or carriages.
When the hon. Member for Leyton spends all his time referring to spy ideas, I recall the nightmare which I shared with the members of the Committee which involves being the person who is allocated to digest the hon. Gentleman's speeches to see whether there is anything new or interesting in them. The hon. Gentleman talks as though he is the third man or, if I might say so after the European elections, "The Green Man". He uses a roundabout way to try to tell the House that he is worried that new information may be provided by the system.
The system is designed to give the driver information on which way to go to reach his destination, and that is all. There is provision for a second tier of information, which, with the consent of Autoguide, would tell the subscriber where his vehicle is. That would be explicit information and there would be powers to ensure that that information is not shared. The system can work well without even the operator knowing the identity of individual vehicles that are receiving route guidance.
Amendment No. 2 is unnecessary. It would give the Secretary of State no more power than that provided under the Bill as drafted. It is technically defective in that it seeks to control the use of information derived from 259 vehicles when "driver information", which is the term used in the amendment, is defined in the Bill as giving route guidance to vehicles.
The amendments should be resisted. The hon. Gentleman, on reflection, may not wish to press them to a Division.

§ Mr. Cohen
I have made my point. I believe that these issues will come back to the House in future as problems ensue. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.