Security News > 2020 > May > Former Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman calls on UK govt to legally protect data from contact-tracing apps

Harriet Harman, chair of the UK's Joint Committee on Human Rights and former Labour Deputy Leader, has redoubled calls on the British government to ensure any COVID-19 contact-tracing app sufficiently protects users' privacy.

"We don't want the system to rely on the individual integrity of any minister, or any ministerial team, or any government. That's not the way to protect rights. The way to have protections is through law," Harman said.

Harman earlier described the current data protection legislation - which includes the Data Protection Act of 2018, GDPR, case law, and the European Convention on Human Rights - as a "Tangle of law" that's "Wholly inadequate" for the scope of the problem.

The joint committee's bill would take an implementation-agnostic view of things, and would apply to contact-tracing apps that are centralised in their approach or decentralised.

Speaking to The Register, Harman emphasised that the introduction of the joint committee's bill wouldn't necessarily delay the rollout of any contact-tracing app.

News URL

https://go.theregister.co.uk/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/20/uk_contact_tracing_protections/