There has already been serious controversy about the “Henry VIII” powers in the Brexit Bill, which will enable ministers to rewrite laws at their discretion as we leave the EU. Now Theresa May’s government has sneaked a new “Framework for data processing in government” into the Lords committee stage of the new Data Protection Bill (see pages 99-101, which are pp 111–3 of the pdf). It will enable ministers to promulgate a Henry VIII privacy regulation with quite extraordinary properties.

It will cover all data held by any public body including the NHS (175(1)), be outside of the ICO’s jurisdiction (178(5)) and that of any tribunal (178(2)) including Judicial Review (175(4), 176(7)), wider human-rights law (178(2,3,4)), and international jurisdictions – although ministers are supposed to change it if they notice that it breaks any international treaty obligation (177(4)).

In fact it will be changeable on a whim by Ministers (175(4)), have no effective Parliamentary oversight (175(6)), and apply retroactively (178(3)). It will also provide an automatic statutory defence for any data processing in any Government decision taken to any tribunal/court 178(4)).

Ministers have had frequent fights in the past over personal data in the public sector, most frequently over medical records which they have sold, again and again, to drug companies and others in defiance not just of UK law, EU law and human-rights law, but of the express wishes of patients, articulated by opting out of data “sharing”. In fact, we have to thank MedConfidential for being the first to notice the latest data grab. Their briefing gives more details are sets out the amendments we need to press for in Parliament. This is not the only awful thing about the bill by any means; its section 164 will be terrible news for journalists. This is one of those times when you need to write to your MP. Please do it now!