My Lords, I support Amendment 34 and will speak to Amendments 35, 93, 100, 101 and 102. I retabled these amendments because I think I did not make myself clear in Committee and some of the Ministers’ replies seemed confused. It was pacifying to be soothed in that way but I still have a problem. The noble Lord, Lord Ashton, said:
“All decisions relating to the processing of personal data engage an individual’s human rights, so it would not be appropriate to exclude automated decisions on this basis”.—[Official Report, 13/11/17; col. 1871.]
My point was that there is confusion between the gathering of evidence, the processing and decision-making. My amendments do nothing to inhibit automated data processing or seek to move us back to handwritten records. Automated data processing is unaffected by my amendments, which focus on decisions based on data, however the data is processed. Data could be gathered, processed and analysed completely automatically with no human involvement—a computer could even generate a recommended decision—but where human rights are engaged, the final decision must be made by a human being.
There was similar confusion in the replies of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, in regard to law enforcement and intelligence service decisions. She said that,
“the unintended consequences of this could be very damaging. For example, any intelligence work by the intelligence services relating to an individual would almost certainly engage the right to respect for private life. The effect of the amendment on Part 4 would therefore prevent the intelligence services taking any further action based on automated processing, even if that further action was necessary, proportionate, authorised under the law and fully compliant with the Human Rights Act”.—[Official Report, 15/11/17; col. 2073.]
Again, there is confusion between the processing, gathering of data and making the decision where human rights are engaged.
I repeat that my amendments allow for data to be processed automatically: they do not allow for a computer to make a decision contrary to someone’s human rights. Decision-makers can be supported by automated processing but the ultimate decisions must be made by a human being. We have to have this vital safeguard for human rights. After all the automated processing has been carried out, a human has to decide whether or not it is a reasonable decision to proceed. In this way we know where the decision lay and where the responsibility lies. No one can ever say, “We messed up your human rights. We interfered with your human rights and it is the computer’s fault”.
I am grateful to Liberty for drafting the amendments I have tabled and I hope that I have explained them fully and rather better than in Committee. I look forward to the Ministers’ replies. I feel strongly about this issue. These words have to be in the Bill so that it is absolutely clear that human rights are protected.