§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Criminal Records Bureau is processing Disclosure applications in Madras; and if he will make a statement. [100145]
§ Hilary BennDisclosure applications are not being processed in Madras, India. All Disclosure applications are processed at the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) sites at Liverpool and Darwen, Blackburn. The work being undertaken at Madras involves manual inputting of personal information such as name, date of birth and addresses during the past five years, provided by individuals on their application forms. This work is undertaken at the beginning of the process, and no information drawn from police sources or other data sources is involved.
This arrangement was introduced as part of a package of measures to improve the performance of the CRB. It has proved highly effective in enabling large numbers of paper application forms to be processed, with timely, efficient and accurate data capture, and eliminating backlogs from this critical stage of the CRB process.
The contractual provisions make it clear that the processing of data must be in accordance with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998, and security and other arrangements must be such that they do not involve a material increase to the risk of misuse of data.
1299WBefore agreement was given for any data to be processed in India, the site was visited by senior officials from the CRB, who were fully satisfied that this was the case.
§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to his answer of 9 January,Official Report, columns 287–88W, on the Criminal Records Bureau, if he will place in the Library a copy of the CRB application form for (a) basic, (b) standard and (c) enhanced disclosures and the guidance notes for (i) before and (ii) after they were modified. [100164]
§ Hilary Benn[holding answer 6 February 2003]: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 25 February 2003, Official Report, column 403W.