Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you all for being with us today.
My question will initially be for Mr. Winter.
Mr. Winter, we have been discussing, at this committee, security and privacy issues regarding e-petitions, specifically how do we ensure that the privacy of the information forwarded to the House of Commons via e-petitions is respected and the privacy of the individuals signing e-petitions is respected. Specifically we want to ensure that no political party would be able to data mine those petitions for use in their own political world.
Could you please give me a breakdown of the protocols that you may have established in the U.K. that could ensure that privacy concerns are addressed and the security and provision of the names are not data mined by political parties? For example, when someone signs an e-petition does his or her name and address and all subsequent information appear on the government website? What would prevent anyone from harvesting that information as petitions are being tabulated? Do you have other security provisions that absolutely prevent any data mining from being able to be used by political parties?