Blair Proves Orwell Was Right, 18 Years Late

by Jeremy Hetherington-Gore, Tax-News.com, London

12 April 2002

In a menacing new development, the UK government, which has already reneged on promises of sweeping reform to the country's restrictive freedom of information rules, yesterday proposed to give itself carte blanche to allow its agencies, including the Inland Revenue, to swap personal data with each other.

The measures, tabled through the Cabinet Office, would allow the hand-over of information on taxation, medical records and benefit payments, as well as criminal records. State agencies that would be entitled to swap information include the driver and vehicle licensing agency and the UK passport service. Benefit records could also be made available to legal departments. Information collected for council tax purposes could also be given to all other council departments.

A draft bill will be published next year which will give the new powers to government under general enabling legislation, with decisions on allowing disclosure of particular categories of information endorsed by MPs through secondary legislation. In other words, the swapping of information would be nodded through by sleeping MPs on parliamentary committees at 4 o'clock in the morning when no-one is noticing, and we journalists have long gone to bed with a bottle of Scotch.

Ministers claim laughably that they have sought to strike a balance between the need for greater data sharing within government to improve the delivery of seamless government services, and the need to protect individual privacy.

However, a draft public services trust charter issued by the Public Information Unit promises: "Your information is only processed without your knowledge where this is necessary for purposes such as national security, public safety, statistical analysis, the protection of the economy, the prevention of crime and disorder, the protection of health or morals, or the protection of rights and freedoms of others". In other words, whenever they like, although it's a major ommission that they didn't include 'the wellbeing of football' in the list.

John Wadham, director of Liberty, said the proposals "will lead to a major increase in data-matching. It's a basic principle of data protection that personal information that we give for one purpose should not then be used for another purpose without our consent".

Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat freedom of information spokesman, commented: "These proposals are draconian, dangerous and undemocratic".

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