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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, yesterday, I was at Infosec on a panel with the Information Commissioner on this very subject. It is a huge problem. As the Information Commissioner says, some sections of the press have been concerned that the provision could have a chilling effect, but the interesting thing is that no new criminal offence is being created and there is already a defence for journalists whose activities can be justified as being in the public interest. So why are they so worried? The answer is that the previous penalties did not deter them. Reading the commissioner’s excellent report, What Price Privacy Now?, we find that the Daily Mail tops the poll with 952 transactions positively identified, with 58 journalists buying information from databases. That is sensitive information about people that could be used. If the journalists were not actually working for the newspaper or moved, they could be misusing information. We have to tighten up on this. Therefore, although we would have preferred the tighter clause, we welcome what the Government are trying to do here.