POST OFFICE (DATA PROCESSING SERVICE) BILL (Hansard, 21 July 1967)

THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for allowing me to speak first. I thought that a few words should be said before the Bill passes your Lordships' House. Although the Opposition in another place did not succeed in getting the Bill altered, they did, as my honourable friend Mr. David Price pointed out, receive some important undertakings from the Postmaster General which we feel certain he will honour. They come under five heads: accountability; concern about unfair competition; the question of confidentiality; the problem of restrictive practices; and the question of standards. My honourable friend also raised in general discussion the problem of the future and the key importance of the efficiency of the transmission network. I hope the noble Lord will be able to tell us that these undertakings will be binding on the Postmaster General's successor. It is clear that any successor will find it difficult not to be bound by them, but I hope that the noble Lord will be able to reassure us on that point.

There are only two other points I should like to make. The first relates to the accounting procedures which the Post Office adopt. On the rather weak grounds that these already provide for the debiting of common services to each of the different branches of the Post Office, the Postmaster General stated in his Second 552 Reading speech that charges will be made to other Government Departments. This is important, because the services will be in competition with private computor bureaux. If, therefore, the Post Office are operating on a truly commercial basis, as no doubt they will claim they will do, it is essential that the sums received should be kept in a separate fund and that the accounts should be entirely separate, so that Parliament and the public may judge whether or not the Government are fulfilling their pledge and not operating unfairly. We on this side of the House might have put down an Amendment at Committee stage here to ensure this, but I hope your Lordships will feel that the Government's assurances in both Houses, and anything further which the noble Lord may say to-day, meet this point.

We might also have put down Amendments regarding confidentiality. However, during the Committee proceedings in another place, as we know, the Government were so impressed by the general fear of breach of confidence that a new Clause 2 on the obligation of secrecy was inserted and the Postmaster General agreed to discuss this problem further. It must be remembered that the data processing service described by the Postmaster General and by the noble Lord, on the Second Reading in each House, will provide not only for the use of Post Office computers but also for the provision of a data programming service and storage in data banks. Not only, therefore, will the computer itself store up much secret information, but the officials of the service will inevitably have to learn a lot about any particular business. I think my noble friend Lord Ferrers made this point during the Second Reading here, and I was very sorry not to be present myself.

There is also the danger of wrong numbers, whereby a mechanical fault might accidentally disclose secret information. It is true that Clause 2 now provides penalties for unauthorised disclosure, but there is still a danger that a future Government might insist upon such information being disclosed. One has only to consider the recent disclosure in connection with the "D" notice affair to have doubts as to how effective secrecy may be in regard to any information supplied to a Government Department. Therefore, it seemed necessary to us to have some 553 impartial body, to whose opinions the Postmaster General would have to listen to advise him on this vital matter; and that was the point of an Amendment which we might have put down.

However, a similar Amendment was rejected in Committee in another place on the grounds that there are a number of pieces of information which must inevitably be communicated if the service is to work; for example, from one official to his successor. This could have been covered by exceptions detailed by the kind of Computer Confidentiality Council which we contemplated in that Amendment. Since, however, the Amendment was rejected in another place, I did not think there was much point in pressing it upon your Lordships towards the end of our long Session; and we made our protest yesterday about the congestion of business with which your Lordships are faced in the last week of our deliberations. Therefore I hope that the assurances given, both by the Postmaster General and by the noble Lord in this House, will be found to be reasonably satisfactory to your Lordships. For these reasons I do not propose to object to the passing of the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has many qualifications and many skills. One or two, perhaps, we share in common. I think we are both what he describes as new-fashioned men. We have both studied the use of computers in many different fields, and both of us are professed readers of science fiction, some of which, by and large, so often comes true. I think we are both certainly concerned about the "Big Brother" aspects of our communications system. But perhaps "Big Brother" may not always be a bad man—some, indeed, rather presumptuously confuse him with God. If "Big Brother" is always watching us we may, they say, be more likely to keep out of mischief. But even if I cannot consider the kind of services provided under this Bill to be completely satisfactory—and they could certainly be abused—I think this Bill can be very useful. I hope that "Big Brother" will not be tempted to exceed his functions, or to make illegitimate use of the information which he will inevitably acquire.

§ LORD SHACKLETON

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, has spoken 554 with his usual eloquence. I do not know whether I am a new-fashioned man; I am afraid that at the moment I feel rather old-fashioned. I think the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, was leaning on a stick on the last occasion. But I am glad we are all agreed that this Bill, should go forward. I did not quite understand the noble Earl when he said that the Government have been unwilling to accept Amendments, when later on he admitted that in another place they had dealt with a confidentiality Amendment.

The noble Earl is worried about "Big Brother". The important thing about this Bill is that "Big Brother", even if he is tempted, will not be allowed to indulge himself, because we have put in a clause which is very stringent; and, as I pointed out, not even the Postmaster General himself will have access to the information contained in the data bank I should like to emphasise that I believe, so far as this Bill and its purposes are concerned, that the protection is absolute. No information acquired by any officer of the Post Office, from the Minister downwards, in the course of the provision of services and facilities for the processing of data by computer, may be disclosed by that officer. That means that it cannot be disclosed to another Department of the Post Office, or to any other Government Department or agency, or to any other outside user. I am afraid, therefore, that "Big Brother" is really out in the cold on this occasion. The only exceptions permitted are where the person to whom the service is being provided actually consents, or where the law requires; and that is, of course—I stress again—the law and the protection of Parliament. I am not saying that this information could not be got at, but Parliament has to protect the citizen from a misuse of this kind.

Here let me stress that of course this difficulty could in theory arise not only in regard to the Government. The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, referred to the interest which he took when he saw B.E.A.'s computer with which they were booking various places, and he wondered who was going abroad with whom. There is a second order problem, in that it is supposed that this information might be processed and the result used for purposes quite different from the original intention.

555 Looking at another case, a wine merchant's ledger, for instance, could be processed to find out the people who consumed a bottle of whisky a day. The information could then be fed to the credit-making file of a hire-purchase company to be used in some way quite unknown to that person, to assess his credit-worthiness. This goes on now in relation to credit-worthiness, although I doubt whether there is access to the wine merchants' files. But I should be surprised if, in certain cases of people assessing credit, questions of reliability did not come in. In case the wine merchants or the wine victuallers complain, let me say that I do not suggest for one moment that wine merchants are other than the most discreet of men as regards the accounts of their customers. I think we are all agreed on this. I think it has been very useful to get this question of confidentiality—or, as my noble friend Lord Lloyd of Hampstead would have it, confidence—discussed. It may well be that a future historian will pick on these little debates, which we have had here on this subject, as of importance in showing an awareness.

The noble Lord referred to the financial aspects of the National Data Processing Service. The essence of the matter is that the National Data Processing Service will be run on commercial lines, will be expected to make a profit, will bear all the charges proper to it, and will not be subsidised in any shape or form by either the telecommunications or postal service. Speaking as a former Departmental Minister, I know how closely one looks at the services one provides to other Departments, and how one tries to refrain from subsidising them. When I was Air Force Minister we were jolly careful about letting the Foreign Office use our aeroplanes without paying for them. This, I think, is part of the proper attitude in an effort to make sure that charges are properly deployed and properly shown; and I am quite certain that the existing Post Office accounts, which show in commercial form all the appropriate information for the telecommunications and postal service, will likewise show it for the National Data Processing Service.

The noble Lord said that he accepted the assurances of the Postmaster General, 556 and hoped that they would be binding on his successor. A great deal of our practice is not in certain respects covered in legislation. There is always great argument whether somebody is bound or not, and whether it is necessary to put certain things in legislative form. But here the practice is already established, and there are strong watchdogs in the shape of the various committees and the Auditor General. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will join with me in wishing the Bill well. It is an important measure. It indicates the Government's clear intention that this service should be developed to implement in the fullest possible way not only the letter but the spirit of all the explanations and assurances which have been given, not only in your Lordships' House but in another place. I think this will be an interesting development, and we shall be able to look back in a few years' time and see it adding usefully to the efficiency and prosperity of the country.