Lack Of Privacy Of Information On Electors

EDM number 416 in 1989-90, proposed by Harry Cohen on 31/01/1990.

That this House notes that with regard to the Electoral Register the Secretary of State for the Home Department has no plans to let voters decide for themselves whether they wish their names and addresses to be sold from the Register, has no plans even to inform voters that their names and addresses are sold, or disclosed for other purposes such as the poll tax, has no plans to provide guidance on privacy issues to electoral registration officers that arise from the disclosure of the Electoral Register, has no plans to study the privacy implications of linking the freely available Electoral Register in computer-readable form with poll tax data, census data or other large databases, for example, credit reference agencies and street indices of police command and control computers and has no plans to protect those who might be at risk should their name and address be sold or disclosed, for example, women who have suffered violence from their male partners; draws the conclusion that the sale or disclosure of a voter's secret details, in secret, or without the voter's knowledge or consent, results in a violation of privacy that is wholly inconsistent with the rights of the individual and is an abuse of the electoral process; and calls for the withdrawal of the draft Representation of the People (Amendment) Regulations currently before the House, in order to protect individual privacy.

This motion has been signed by a total of 26 MPs.