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Elizabeth Denham.
Elizabeth Denham, the information commissioner, said the Tories’ collection of data on voters’ ethnic origin, religion and country of birth had no legal basis. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Observer
Elizabeth Denham, the information commissioner, said the Tories’ collection of data on voters’ ethnic origin, religion and country of birth had no legal basis. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Observer

Tory party illegally collected data on ethnicity of 10m voters, MPs told

This article is more than 3 years old

Information commissioner says data was voluntarily deleted amid concerns about ‘weak’ enforcement

The Conservative party acted illegally when it collected data on the ethnic backgrounds of 10 million voters before the 2019 general election, the information commissioner has told a committee of MPs.

However, Elizabeth Denham insisted there had been no need to issue an enforcement notice against the party, as it had voluntarily deleted the data it held after a “recommendation” from her office.

Answering questions at a digital, culture, media and sport select committee meeting on Tuesday morning, Denham said that the Conservatives’ collection of estimated data on voters’ ethnic origin, religion, and country of birth had no legal basis.

“We made the recommendation that they destroy the data because they didn’t have a legal basis to collect it,” she said, adding, under sustained questioning from the SNP MP John Nicolson: “It was illegal to collect the ethnicity data.”

The breach was first highlighted in November in a report by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), assessing political parties’ compliance with data protection laws. It reported that the Conservatives had purchased so-called estimated onomastic data – which attempts to identify individuals’ ethnic origin, religion, country of birth and other characteristics, based on their first and last names – and appended it to the records of 10 million people.

The Conservative party has a history of the controversial use of such data. In 2016, Zac Goldsmith’s Conservative party campaign for London mayor was accused of trying to exploit anti-Muslim sentiment among Hindu, Sikh and Tamil voters as he competed for votes with Labour’s Sadiq Khan, which Goldsmith denied.

On Tuesday, Denham faced accusations from Nicolson that the ICO was “weak when it comes to enforcement”. No political party has been served an enforcement notice for its use of data, despite the ICO identifying a number of breaches by parties in its November report. Denham insisted that enforcement had not been necessary after parties voluntary complied with her recommendations.

Jim Killock, the executive director of Open Rights Group, called for more clarity on the ICO’s role regarding political data collection.

He said: “Elizabeth Denham finally confirmed the unlawful nature of this profiling by the Conservative party under pressure from MPs on the DCMS committee. Yet the ICO still has not explained what parties can and can not do. Mass profiling of voters continues, even if this data has been removed. The ICO needs to act to stop unlawful profiling practices. That’s their job.”

Denham’s comments also seemingly contradicted a statement made in parliament by John Whittingdale, the data minister, last month.

Questioned by Nicolson in a Commons debate on data protection on 10 December, Whittingdale said of the ICO’s report: “As I recall, the information commissioner examined the practices of all political parties and made comments against all of them. However, it did not find that any breaches of the law had occurred.”

Denham would not be drawn into commenting on Whittingdale’s statement.

Cat Smith, the shadow voter engagement minister, said: “The Conservative party’s illegal misuse of ethnic race data – a characteristic protected by law – is deeply concerning.

“With the government’s discriminatory voter ID laws due to come into law this year, such racial profiling by the party that is in charge of upholding our data protection laws raises serious alarm bells.”

A Conservative party spokesperson said: “The Conservative party complies with all prevailing electoral, data protection and electronic marketing legislation.

“The party has assisted the Information Commissioner in its review of political parties’ practices and have taken on board the constructive feedback from the review.”

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