The Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham spoke in a debate at the second reading of the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill on 19th December 2023, pointing out the importance of public trust in institutions handling personal data:
The Lord Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham: My Lords, on behalf of these Benches, I too welcome the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford. I pay tribute to his maiden speech and thank him for his insightful and valuable contribution to this debate. I also look forward to many future occasions on which he will contribute to the work of this House.
As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans has said, we on these Benches recognise that high-quality data is crucial to creating and sustaining a healthy and efficient society. However, it is vital to get the balance right between ownership, access, control, and legitimate use of that data. Human flourishing should be at the front of regulating how data is used and reused. As we said in our written response to the Government’s 2020 data consultation:
“Fundamentally, the church welcomes any technology that augments human dignity and worth, while staunchly resisting any application of data that undermines that dignity. Questions of efficiency and cost-effectiveness are subsidiary to questions about how the types and uses of data will promote human flourishing in society and best practice in public bodies”.
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