Lead member
Baroness Kidron
Crossbench, Life peer
Lords
Decision
Agreed
This amendment was agreed to. Where a member has given notice of their intention to oppose a Clause/Schedule standing part of a Bill, 'agreed' indicates that the Clause/Schedule was removed from the Bill.
Amendment text
After Clause 132
insert the following new Clause—
“Enforcement
(1)
The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision requiring the Information Commission (under section 114 of the Data Protection Act 2018) (“the Commissioner”) to monitor and secure compliance with the duties under sections (Transparency of crawler identity, purpose, and segmentation) and (Transparency of copyrighted works scraped) (“the duties”) by an operator of a web crawler or general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) model whose service has links with the United Kingdom within the meaning of section 4(5) of the Online Safety Act 2023 (“a relevant operator”), including but not limited to the following—
(a)
the regulations must provide for the Commissioner to have the power by written notice (an "information notice”) to require a relevant operator to provide the Commissioner with information that the Commissioner reasonably requires for the purposes of investigating a suspected failure to comply with the duties;
(b)
the regulations must provide for the Commissioner to have the power by written notice (an "assessment notice") to require and to permit the Commissioner to carry out an assessment of whether a relevant operator has complied or is complying with the duties and to require a relevant operator to do any of the acts set out in section 146(2) of the Data Protection Act 2018;
(c)
the regulations must provide that where the Commissioner is satisfied that a relevant operator has failed, or is failing to comply with the duties, the Commissioner may give the relevant operator a written notice (an "enforcement notice") which requires it—
(i)
to take steps specified in the notice, or
(ii)
to refrain from taking steps specified in the notice;
(d)
the regulations must provide that where the Commissioner is satisfied that a relevant operator has failed or is failing to comply with the duties or has failed to comply with an information notice, an assessment notice or an enforcement notice, the Commissioner may, by written notice (a "penalty notice"), require the person to pay to the Commissioner an amount in sterling specified in the notice, the maximum amount of the penalty that may be imposed by a penalty notice being the "higher maximum amount" as defined in section 157 of the Data Protection Act 2018;
(e)
the regulations may provide for the procedure and rights of appeal in relation to the giving of an information notice, an assessment notice, an enforcement notice or a penalty notice.
(2)
The regulations must provide that any failure to comply with the duties by a relevant operator shall be directly actionable by any copyright owner who is adversely affected by such failure, and that such copyright owner will be entitled to recover damages for any loss suffered and to injunctive relief.
(3)
The regulations must provide that the powers of the Commissioner and the rights of a copyright owner will apply in relation to a relevant operator providing a service from outside the United Kingdom (as well as such one provided from within the United Kingdom).
(4)
The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a draft of the statutory instrument containing the regulations under this section within six months of the day on which this Act is passed and the regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure.”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is part of a group of amendments that would clarify the requirement for web-crawlers and other “data gatherers” to observe UK copyright law. This amendment creates an enforcement procedure in line with the Data Protection Act 2018.