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Internet: Personal Security (S&T Report)

My Lords, the response of Whitehall and of the Government to the Personal Internet Security report demonstrates a fundamental weakness in our system of government. The Members of your Lordships’ House who sat on the investigation are highly experienced, and the witnesses who we saw, both here and particularly in the United States, have tremendous knowledge and expertise. The costs that we incurred and the time that we spent in our deliberations were significant. We produced an outstanding report on a crucial topic, of which all of us should be proud. Yet the Government’s response to our original report was hugely disappointing. I would be the first this afternoon, but certainly not the last, to thank our chairman the noble Lord, Lord Broers. He has a powerful CV and he led us with great skill, determination and technical insight. I must also thank him for pushing hard to secure this debate. The Government’s response lacked depth and urgency. It failed to address many of our recommendations. Indeed, from their first response, I began to wonder whether Ministers had even read the report. My view is that government pay scant regard to parliamentary Select Committee reports, especially those from your Lordships’ House. I have encountered Whitehall departments which are almost totally ignorant of the work that we do in this House. I suspect that in many cases attendance before a Select Committee is regarded as a nuisance—an irritating distraction to the Minister’s very busy and no doubt important day. This dismissive attitude diminishes the role of Parliament. The noble Lord, Lord Broers, was correct not to accept the Government’s tepid response and to encourage the follow-up that the whole committee recommended. Eventually the Government started to take us seriously, and my noble friend Lady Vadera, to her credit, has shown a complete grasp of the subject. I hope that she is now on our side. I am sorry for my rant but this subject truly bothers me. I would like to try to inject a sense of urgency into this subject. The IT industry is like no other. It moves dazzlingly quickly. When I re-read the report this week, I became aware of how much was missing, not because of any omission on our behalf, but simply because much has happened in the 16 or 17 months since publication. I wish to highlight a development that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister announced in his conference speech two weeks ago. He stated that £300 million would be made available to enable underprivileged children to have personal access to laptops and the internet. This will enable all children in this country to have access to their school work at school and at home. The objective is to make Britain’s children fully trained in the use of this crucial 21st-century technology. The digital divide, as it is called, separates children across class barriers and the announcement goes a long way to redressing the balance. I declare an interest as chair of the e-Learning Foundation, which I set up in 2001 at a time when computers in the classroom were opposed on many levels. Now we are beginning to reach our goal, which is wonderful, but even so, I worry about the dangers that children face. Now, more than ever, computer manufacturers have a duty to inform the public and children of the dangers of inappropriate internet use. Children should be able to access tuition programmes on their computers, which tell them about internet etiquette and usage. Indeed, if the analogy cited in our report of driving on a motorway is to be extended, there should be an internet equivalent of a driving test for children. One of the biggest changes in the 16 months since this report was published has been the explosion in social networking, particularly Facebook. It is estimated that 85 per cent of American students use it, and I bet that the percentage in this country is not much less among our students. My sons have more than 700 friends on their Facebook sites. For many young people it is their primary method of social contact. They use it for digital photos, e-mail, announcement of parties and other social events. It is ubiquitous. ““Facebooked”” has now joined ““Googled”” among the young’s vocabulary. However, Facebook is a security nightmare. It is easy to access such sites, which is open season for the bad guys. I am told that university admission departments in this country access Facebook to check out new students, and recruiters trawl such sites in attempts to find out more about potential job applicants. Facebook needs to do more to protect its customers. Government needs to be more aware of the dangers. The next major development since the publication of the report has been the astronomical growth of smart mobile phones. Today there are 1 billion PCs worldwide. By 2011, I have been informed that 3 billion smart phones will be in existence. This development means that all the security problems associated with any standard PC will be significantly enhanced now that computing is becoming totally mobile. Today, almost everything that we can do on a PC, we can do on a mobile phone. Soon we will have the ability to conduct video conversations through our phones while on the move. Once again, security issues have taken on a higher level of concern. Associated with the mobile phone is the use of mobile VOIP—voice over internet protocol—such as Skype. My iPhone now has a new application called Fring. It enables me to make phone calls to any destination in the world practically free of charge. It is true that the software is buggy and true that I need to stand close to a wi-fi hotspot but it is an indication of things to come. In the not-too-distant future, phone calls will be made not via landlines, nor via mobile operators, but via the internet. Again, the security aspects are formidable. My final new development is a concept called SaaS—software as a service. The internet industry has frequently witnessed the arrival of disruptive technologies, and SaaS is truly disruptive. The development of fast internet connection and the proliferation of highly sophisticated hardware devices have combined to redefine how software is used. Today’s model, whereby software vendors sell their programmes on a DVD and the customers operate these programmes on their own computers in-house, is fast-changing. SaaS uses a technology called Cloud, where the software is located remotely—even continents away—and the customer inputs his data and receives data back from Cloud. To the customer, it has many advantages. It means that he pays by usage, not by original purchase price; it means that software is always up to date; and it means that the developer has immediate feedback from its customers. It is estimated that by 2011 25 per cent of all computer usage will be SaaS-based. As a measure of growth, Microsoft says that it is installing 10,000 servers a month for its own usage solely to deal with the SaaS explosion. Security is key. The vendors say that it is more secure to keep data on Cloud than to keep it locally, and I probably believe them. After all, that is where I keep my own personal data. On the other hand, the vulnerability of SaaS to a global strategic attack is not hard to imagine and not out of the question. Facebook, smart mobile phone growth, VOIP and SaaS barely featured in our report, yet today they are pointers of future IT developments. They are a measure of the ever-changing technological thrust that is occurring in this industry. Security issues are becoming more crucial and the consequences more frightening, yet Governments everywhere respond ponderously to this threat. At the very least, I hope that this report and this debate inject some degree of urgency into the dangers and risks of the internet.