§ Mr. Farrasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to bring forward legislation to establish the Data Protection Authority as envisaged in Command Paper No. 6353; what he anticipates its powers will be; and if it will have the power to demand returns of information from industry.
§ Mr. Roy JenkinsThe timing of the legislation will depend upon the progress made by the Data Protection Committee. It will be for the Committee to recommend what powers the Data Protection Authority should have, as indicated in paragraph 37 of the White Paper "Computers and Privacy" (Cmnd 6353).
§ Mr. Farrasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has yet completed the setting up of the Data Protection Committee referred to in Command Paper No. 6353; what functions it will have; and what is its estimated annual operating cost to the Exchequer.
§ Mr. Roy JenkinsThe House will have learnt with great regret of the death of Sir Kenneth Younger who was to have served as chairman of the Data Protection Committee. I hope to announce the full membership of the committee within a few weeks.
The committee's function is to prepare the way for the setting up of the permanent statutory agency to oversee the use of computers that handle personal information. No realistic estimate can yet be made of the cost of the committee, although it should not be large.
§ Mr. Farrasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, when 142W he decided to set up a Data Protection Authority, he took into account the conclusion of the Younger Committee on privacy in paragraph 619 that the computer as used in the private sector is not a threat to privacy.
§ Mr. Roy JenkinsI took into account that the committee concluded that, while the computer as used in the private sector was not at present a threat to privacy, there was
a possibility of such a threat becoming a reality in the future"—paragraph 619 of Cmnd. 5012.