Changes offer opportunity for abuse

DATA protection is vital in our electronic world and it’s even more complicated when two important steps are progressing almost in parallel and one of them is hijacked for the separate issue of press regulation.

General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) kick in this month causing consternation with the significant requirements and the severe penalties for breach. Alongside it’s the Data Protection Bill in Westminster. Given the pace of change in technology, getting the legislation up to date’s essential. There have been discussions over this bill regarding the extent of the data being sought and its potential abuse by Government. Those issues will require constant review as society and IT evolve, let the debate take place and let it continue thereafter. Getting the balance right now and in the future is essential

What’s unhelpful though is the insertion of a section on the press. This wasn’t in the legislation at the outset but inserted during passage through the Lords where a section has been added. That’s causing concern, as it seems to have been added almost in a fit of pique for failures or delays over Leveson.

Now, there’s a case to be made for press regulation but it’s not in this bill nor is it this section.

The debate since Leveson was vogue has followed some of the readership and moved from the printed press to social media. Facebook shows the debate is wider and has moved on since then.

It’s worsened by the amendment itself that requires publishers to meet litigant’s costs, irrespective of success. That goes against the norm in court affairs where expenses follow success and defeat comes at a cost. Legal aid can be available and expenses modified to support ordinary people where injustice has occurred.

That may be fraying but it’s surely a better way than a standard requirement that the publisher pays irrespective. Protecting citizens from abuse in the media is important in a democracy, but so too is a free press as Windrush most recently has shown.

There’s life in the old printed press yet and it too needs protected, with many publishers far from wealthy institutions. Moreover, this offers an opportunity for abuse, as well as curtailing vital investigation. It’s hijacking an important bill for tomorrow’s Data Protection legislation with an arbitrary section on yesterday’s press regulation, which isn’t the way to do either subject justice.