Personal Data Of UK Citizens

EDM number 58 in 2014-15, proposed by Roger Godsiff on 09/06/2014.
Categorised under the topic of Data protection.

That this House views with concern the Government's attempts to share unprecedented amounts of personal data belonging to UK citizens, including medical and tax records, with non-governmental organisations and particularly with the private sector; notes the trend of selling this data to commercial companies at prices far below commercial rates, for purposes of private profit rather than public good; further notes the worrying evidence that data in an anonymised and pseudonymised form can be merged with other databases to identify individuals; believes that the Government's current attitude towards protecting citizens' data ignores best practice and the advice of experts; further believes that the Government should learn the lessons of the conspicuous failure of the public awareness campaign for the release of medical data under the care.data scheme and the widespread public opposition to that scheme; is concerned that the Government's view of citizens' personal data as a commodity to be released to the free market is damaging and dangerous; and calls on the Government to halt with immediate effect any further data releases for the purpose of commercial exploitation and any further commercial access to data which it holds in trust on behalf of UK citizens, including data held by HM Revenue and Customs.

This motion has been signed by a total of 28 MPs.