Simon Hughes: safeguarding personal data, but easing its usage

Justice Minister Simon Hughes set out the government’s stance on personal data, which aims to both keep personal data secure, but at the same time make it easier to control the flow of data between consumers and businesses.

Hughes spoke to delegates at the ICO’s Data Protection Practitioner Conference, held in Manchester on Monday 2 March. He shared four examples he said showed government was delivering results for consumers and businesses:

- New power to tackle nuisance calls.

- Extending the Information Commissioner’s powers of audit to public authority NHS bodies.

- Ending the practice of enforced subject access.

- Extending freedom of information.

The Minister also talked about the EU Data Protection Regulation, and gave his view on the negotiations so far, and how it matched UK legislation: “The Information Rights Balance of Competences review which we recently conducted - and which some of you may have contributed to - confirmed that the Data Protection Act strikes a good balance between the interests of data controllers and data subjects,” he said.

He alluded to the positive progress made on the Council text. “We have worked hard to ensure that the original text, which was too prescriptive and process driven, is now more balanced so that data protection obligations on business are proportionate to the degree of harm of the processing activity,” he said, a position which is in part thanks to the efforts of the Ministry of Justice negotiating team making the case for UK business at the Council of Ministers.

It’s encouraging to hear the minister’s comments, which show how closely aligned UK businesses and the government are on the EU Data Protection Regulation, which is a great position to be in as the debate in the EU continues.