Original article by Rei Takver republished from DeSmog

A “rogue” government could seize sensitive information on UK residents, data privacy experts fear.

Labour’s new data access law would allow the UK government to replicate an Elon Musk-style DOGE data-grab, experts and campaigners have warned.

They believe the new law is “ripe for abuse” and could be weaponised by a future Reform UK administration to further its anti-climate, anti-asylum, anti-government agenda.

The Data (Use and Access) Act, which will come into effect next year, empowers ministers to use ‘Henry VIII powers’ – named after the instruments the medieval King used in 1539 to bypass Parliament and rule by decree – to legally access massive quantities of government data with little parliamentary scrutiny.

“The bill has provided any government from this time onward with powers which are ripe for abuse. It gives any future government a blank cheque they can use to legalise the use, sharing and reuse of personal data for whatever purpose they see fit,” Mariano delli Santi, legal and policy officer at the data privacy campaign Open Rights Group, told DeSmog.

The passing of the act comes amid a flurry of concern over Labour’s growing ties to big tech companies, including recent deals with OpenAI and Google to provide artificial intelligence support for UK government initiatives.

“The Labour government has purposefully chosen to ignore risks and prioritise the commercial interests of U.S. and Chinese tech giants over the protection of UK residents’ data and their rights,” said delli Santi.

Technology Secretary Peter Kyle says the new law will “finally unleash” a “goldmine of data” to “help families juggle food costs, slash tedious life admin, and make our NHS and police work smarter”. The government claims it will “inject” the economy with £10 billion in the next 10 years.

The U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), originally led by tech mogul Elon Musk and established by President Donald Trump, has sent teams of engineers into federal government departments to access vast amounts of highly sensitive personal data on U.S. residents in what has been widely dubbed a “digital coup”.

U.S. DOGE is now using those datasets, which include information on immigration status, healthcare, and social services, to collate a “master database” to surveil and track immigrants. The department has also overseen extreme cuts to vital, life-saving services, with a recent study by the Lancet medical journal estimating that Musk’s cuts to the U.S. international aid budget could lead to 14 million deaths by 2030.

Critics fear that Labour’s new data bill will make this sort of data-gathering legal in the UK.

Imitating Trump’s administration, Reform leader Nigel Farage has already established a secretive ‘UK DOGE’ unit intent on gaining access to council data in Reform-led areas.

Reform’s DOGE unit is led by former party chairman Zia Yusuf, a multi-millionaire tech entrepreneur who has not been shy about his desire to emulate Musk’s ideas in the UK.

The party is currently polling to win the next UK general election with 28 percent of the vote – seven points ahead of Labour.

If Reform gains power in 2029, campaigners say it could use Labour’s data access law to carry out its policies, which include a crackdown on immigration, the radical downsizing of the civil service, eliminating “government waste”, and decimating the UK’s net zero projects.

“Labour is handing over the means for a future Reform government to legalise DOGE-style data grabs. In as little as 28 days, a future Reform government could make it legal for a local council or any other public body to share personal data about you with their DOGE consultants,” delli Santi told DeSmog.

A Data Grab?

The Data (Use and Access) Act, which amends existing General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws, expands the government’s ability to use personal data.

Currently, the UK’s GDPR laws require a risk assessment to establish a “balance” between the value of accessing data against the rights of those whose data is accessed.

However, under the new law, the secretary of state can dodge this process by declaring that the data is needed for a “recognised legitimate interest”, which the law says can include “crime prevention”, “safeguarding vulnerable people”, “responding to emergencies”, and “safeguarding national security”.

The categories are vague, and they could feasibly include controlling immigration or making cuts to the administrative state.

Data privacy experts have also expressed concerns – disputed by the government – that the new law provides a loophole allowing ministers to water down protection for “special categories” of data, which are designed to guard against intrusion in relation to the likes of religious beliefs, political opinions, and sexual orientation.

“Ultimately I remain worried that a bad faith actor could come in and abuse the Henry VIII powers – which were intended to make it easier to add protections to GDPR – to undermine the special category data protections,” Duncan McCann, the technology and data lead at the Good Law Project campaign group, told DeSmog. “The importance of special category data means that it should only be amended by Parliament”.

However, even if a government was successful in watering down special category protections, campaigners have warned that diverging from the status quo would seriously compromise the UK’s ability to transfer data with other countries, including the EU, and would have negative economic consequences.

McCann believes this would stop most governments from taking action. “This cost has ensured that governments don’t drastically alter the fundamentals of data protection legislation,” he said.

Despite this, McCann added that “a potential Reform government may be less interested or susceptible to rational economic arguments, making radical divergence from GDPR, if they won, more likely”.

Moreover, even if a Reform government maintained protections against sharing special category data, personal information including tax details, criminal convictions, and immigration status data are not protected in the same way and could be harvested by a Farage government.

Reform’s Council Crusade

Battles have ensued since Reform won control of 10 councils in May’s local elections, with Farage’s party attempting to wrest control of potentially sensitive data for its DOGE operation.

Kent County Council, the first to receive a visit from Yusuf’s unit and a letter from Reform demanding “all council-held documents, reports, and records”, has so far resisted the efforts, hiring external lawyers to challenge the plan.

West Northamptonshire Council agreed in July to allow Yusuf’s largely anonymous team of analysts to access council data and ostensibly reduce local “fraud and waste” – a move that has been labelled an “assault on local democracy” by critics.

Reform claims that it has already saved £100 million since May, although many of the projects cut by the party would have involved introducing clean heating technology that would have saved councils money.

‘Project Chainsaw’

Labour has also used utopian language about the benefits of deploying data analysis and artificial intelligence to cut the size of the state.

“If we push forward with digital reform of government – and we are going to do that, we can make massive savings, £45 billion savings in efficiency. AI is a golden opportunity,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in March.

Starmer promised to “send teams into every government department with a clear mission from me to make the state more innovative and efficient”.

The initiative – which The Guardian reported was at one time referred to as “Project Chainsaw” – was seemingly influenced by a proposal from the Labour Together think tank. The name references Javier Milei, the President of Argentina, who gifted Elon Musk a chainsaw as a symbol for dismantling the U.S. state.

Milei has cut 50,000 public sector jobs and slashed Argentina’s health care budget by 48 percent in real terms since he took office in December 2023.

Labour Together told The Guardian that its initiative would have “’Milei’s energy but with a radical centre-left purpose”.

Data privacy experts have also cautioned that the data access law could “threaten democracy” by potentially compromising the integrity of elections. Campaigners warn the act will allow governments, including the current Labour government, to alter rules about how a political party can use data in the months leading up to an election, which could be used in a ruling party’s favour.

The government told DeSmog that “the Data (Use and Access) Act will not only allow us to harness the power of data to improve public services as part of our Plan for Change, but to do so in a way which also maintains our  world-leading data protection standards.”

Despite these reassurances, delli Santi of Open Rights Group remains concerned. This law, he said, “lacks meaningful safeguards that would prevent it being used to enable disproportionate surveillance, discrimination, and creepy invasions into our private life”.

Original article by Rei Takver republished from DeSmog