thetorydiary

Later this morning - at a time that will curiously overlap with a press conference David Cameron is giving - Dominic Grieve, the shadow Justice Secretary, is launching a new policy paper, Reversing the Rise of the Surveillance State.

You can download the full document as a pdf, but here is a summary of the paper's 11-point plan on how a Conservative Government would respond to the trend of ever-increasing intrusive Government:

1. Scrapping the National Identity Register and ContactPoint database.
2. Establishing clear principles for the use and retention of DNA on the National DNA Database, including ending the permanent or prolonged retention of innocent people's DNA.
3. Restricting and restraining local council access to personal communications data.
4. Reviewing protection of personal privacy from the surveillance state as part of a British Bill of Rights.
5. Strengthening the audit powers and independence of the Information Commissioner.
6. Requiring Privacy Impact Assessments on any proposals for new legislation or other measures that involve data collection or sharing at the earliest opportunity. Require government to consult the Information Commissioner on the PIA and publish his findings.
7. Immediately submitting the Home Office's plans for the retention of, and access to, communications data to the Information Commissioner for pre-legislative scrutiny.
8. Requiring new powers of data-sharing to be introduced into law by primary legislation, not by order.
9. Appointing a Minister and senior civil servant (at Director General level) in each Government ministry with responsibility for departmental operational data security.
10. Tasking the Information Commissioner to publish guidelines on best practice in data security in the public sector.
11. Tasking the Information Commissioner to carry out a consultation with the private sector, with a view to establishing guidance on data security, including examining the viability of introducing an industry-wide kite mark system of best practice.

Mr Grieve, the leading civil libertarian in the shadow cabinet, summarises his approach thus:

"This Government's approach to our personal privacy is the worst of all worlds - intrusive, ineffective and enormously expensive. We cannot run government robotically. We cannot protect the public through automated systems. And we cannot eliminate the need for human judgment calls on risk, whether to children, or from criminal and terrorist threats.

"As we have seen time and time again, over-reliance on the database state is a poor substitute for the human judgment and care essential to the delivery of frontline public services. Labour's surveillance state has exposed the public to greater - not less - risk."

Jonathan Isaby

4.15pm update: Iain Dale has spoken to Chris Grayling and reports that abolition of the Independent Safeguarding Authority is being considered, but that he did not want to pre-empt discussions going on between shadow ministerial teams:

James Brokenshire from his Shadow Home Affairs team and Maria Miller, the Shadow Children's Minister have been working on a review of this scheme for some time. They are looking at several options, and outright abolition is indeed one of them. Chris said: "We are considering all options, including abolition." He understandably didn't want to pre-empt their conclusions in his article.

---

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling has written an instructive piece for today's Independent in which he expresses the ludicrous level to which the Government now plans to take vetting of those who come into contact with children. He writes:

"The idea of checking the background of every parent who is an occasional helper, or driver to a kids' football match, or to a local dance club, or going along to help on a school outing just defies that common sense. Bear in mind that these aren’t strangers. They are parents escorting their own children and their school friends. Just how far do we want to go as a society?

"If a couple of dads with people carriers drive some of the team to an away football match for the Under-10s some weeks, do they need to be checked for a criminal record? If a school asks for volunteer mums to help with the visit to the local childrens’ farm, do they need CRB checks before they can go?

"We’re not talking about people who run youth groups week after week. We’re not talking about paid staff in schools and other childrens’ centres. We’re talking about parents helping out in their own communities on activities that keep their children and their friends busy and not hanging around on street corners."

It has already been widely reported how difficult it can be these days to get people to volunteer at scout groups, holiday clubs and so on due to a number of factors, not least the delays in processing exiting CRB checks and some of the associated "health and safety" measures which have to be implemented; these further regulations will only make those kinds of activities more difficult to put on, as Mr Grayling laments.

He concludes:

"Is this really the kind of country that we want to create? One where everyone has to be checked before they can do almost anything? One where we no longer trust parents and families to do the right thing? Where the State has to do everything... Of course we need to take sensible steps to stop predatory paedophiles from becoming leaders of youth groups. But we need to trust the parents of the children who go to them."

Jonathan Isaby

Earlier in the year, some wondered about the potential impact of the recession on the debate about civil liberties.

And at lunchtime today, according to a report on the Today programme, David Cameron is due to make a speech in which he will emphasise the need to rebalance the relationship between the state and the individual in favour of the individual.

On issues such as the DNA database, the surveillance state and the way councils have used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to snoop on private citizens, the Conservative leader will promise reforms to the legislation to shift the balance towards the rights of the individual over the state.

In addition, he will embrace the spirit of freedom of information legislation and seek to extend it with a "right to data", meaning that the public will have the right to access all kinds of data, such as police clear up rates and information relating to outcomes across different hospitals.

I'll update this post later today when we have more detail.

2pm Update:

David Cameron has now made the speech are here are some key extracts:

Click here for previous posts.