§ The Earl of Northeskasked Her Majesty's Government:
What the implications are for data privacy of the e-Delivery Team's advocacy of functional modules engines as one of the means of delivering all government services on-line by 2005. [HL6278]
§ The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Macdonald of Tradeston):Functional modules allow common services to be provided to government departments, creating economies of scale benefits through a build once-use many philosopy. These modules themselves only provide functionality, such as secure mail or authentication, and do not themselves have a privacy implication.
These modules are constructed into services, such as the Government Gateway or ukonline.gov.uk. All of these services have detailed privacy policies, require opt-in from users and are fully compliant with the Data Protection Act 1998.