By Ben Kerrigan-
Mp’s are debating the right to exercise exemptions in the Data Protection Bill. The debate has been prompted by Cambridge Analytica affair has raised serious questions about the way in which our data is passed between big business and government; yet despite this, Westminster parties are set to delve deeper into our personal lives.
UK political parties are working together to introduce intrusive data gathering legislation through certain aspects of the Data Protection Bill, that will allow them to carry out extensive profiling of British citizens’ ideological beliefs in order to target voters with specific political messages.
Published in September 2017, the Data Protection Bill was the biggest transformations of British data protection law in 20 years. A new GDPR implementation scheduled to be published in May lays further emphasis on data protection in association with privacy rights. However, the UK government intend to exempt themselves from any stringent provisions in that bill. Members of the government believe they have the unchallenged right to profile all citizens of the UK. The belief that this is for their political gains makes the idea immoral, but perhaps as our leaders, they have a right to know more about us, and we should trust their judgment here. Not everyone will agree with this as expected.
The new legislation will allow political parties exemption from certain aspects of the new data laws. This flexibility will give them a right to canvas prospective voters and so be accessing personal data through fundraising, surveys and various forms of casework is an integral aspect of their preparatory work during election cycles.
This will apply not only to Members of Parliament in Westminster but also to MSP’s in Scotland, as well as representatives in Northern Ireland and Wales – local councilors across the UK also included. In fact all ‘elected representatives‘, or more ambiguously and leaving the door open for companies like the now notorious Cambridge Analytica, ‘a person acting with the authority of such a representative
