The Gazette 1972

Younger Report-Curbs on bugging ELAINE POTTER and JAMES MARGACH

A series of far-rcaching proposals for protecting the private life of citizens in the age of computers and sophisticated spying services is ret out in a report on the right to privacy to he presented by Mr. Reginald Maudling, the Home Secretary, at the beginning of next month. It is expcctcd that Mr. Maudling will give general approval to the proposals, though the committee was appointed by his Labour predecessor, Mr. James Callaghan, just before the 1970 election. The highlights of the report are : 1. Protection against unlawful surveillance through the creation of a new legal offence punishable by im- prisonment and fine. The committee lists about 20 different spying devices, including an "infinity tran- sistor," which can he fitted in three minutes and trans- mits all the sounds in a room, and flourescent dye to he applied to a person to he tailed. 2. Protection against the disclosure of information acquired unlawfully. 3. New rules to prevent the leakage of confidential information stored in computers in Government depart- ments and elsewhere. 4. Stricter review of personal information acquired by credit-rating agencies, with the right of a citizen to know what the agencics know about him. 5. Banks are told to be more forthcoming in telling customers about inquiries made about Uieir financial standing. 6. The operations of private detectives should be supervised by setting up a system of licensing, which could be handled by the police. 7. Press, TV and radio would'be opened up to allow greater opportunity for members of the public to make effective complaint. The Press Councd membership would he changed to recruit about half from outside the newspaper world. 8. Students, too, could be protected by a code of practice on the use of their personal records. The 19-member committee is headed by Sir Kenneth Younger, former Director of Chatham House, and in- cludes barristers, two MPs, journalists and novelist Margaret Drabble. In its report it says that privacy for the citizen is not just a question of taste which can be left to the restraints of social convention. On the other hand, the need to preserve freedom and the right to tell die truth openly makes it a difficult balance to strike between control and liberty. Somewhat dismayingly, the Committee found that the public generally was not greatly concerned. Response to the Committee's request for information about privacy invasion was so small that they commissioned a public attitude survey. The survey showed that people attached less importance to protecting privacy, than to

keeping down prices, reducing unemployment and stopping strikes. It rated between building more houses (more important) and building more schools (less im- portant). When Mr. Maudling makes his statement on Younger, he will also announce the setting up of an inquiry into safeguarding the citizen's private rights against invasion by nationalised industries, all state agencies and services and big semi-public bodies, as well as local authorities. He will be able to announce measures being taken to tighten up the confidentiality of the mass of private information hanked by the computers of a dozen and more Ministries. Whitehall, it is recognised, knows afl great deal alxmt the private lives and family details of every citizen. The Younger Committee betrays anxiety about the risks of Whitehall departments centralising their mass of privately filed details. The Home Secretary will soon receive a report of a committee of civil servants on their two-year investiga- tions into ways of controlling this confidential informa- tion. The Younger Committee was appointed after the Private Member's Bill of Mr. Brian Walden had been rejected. Younger was asked to consider whether legis- lation was needed to protect the individual citizen against intrusion into privacy. Brian Walden's Bill pro- posed the creation of a new general law of privacy, so that substantial infringements would be open to a civil legal action. The Younger committee says the need for a general law of privacy has not been made out. Such a law might infringe upon other rights of greater importance, but in a minority report, Alexander Lyon, MP, argues that a general law of privacy would be an effective way of protecting the individual's rights. Perhaps, the most important and far reaching of the Committee's recommendations is that an individual should have a legally enforceable right of access to the information held about him by credit rating agencies. At present there is little protection for the citizen against a credit bureau—or indeed anyone—who collates information about hiin. As to the use of that information, Younger says it should only be possible successfully to sue for libel if the information was de- famatory and was both untrue and provided maliciously by an agency. To keep the activities of credit rating agencies under review Younger endorses the idea of a Consumer Credit Commissioner, recommended by die Crowther Com- mittee on Consumer Credit. (Tht Sunday Times) 11 June 1972

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