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A Surveillance Society?

Even accepting that some of the data losses of the past year or so were mistakes for which nobody was culpable, does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that, despite that spate of losses, we have not had a firm set of rules from the Government covering how data should be controlled and managed? We need rules on the level of seniority of civil servants who can access such data and on how those data may be sent from one organisation to another. Government Departments still seem to see those losses in isolation, with one Department blaming another for what happened. Our Committee was very concerned that there should be one, firm set of rules for the whole of Government.