Questions about sexual orientation in credit reporting bill

A reference to sexual orientation in the Fair Credit Reporting Bill, 2021 was on Tuesday a point of contention for Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley who has questioned whether the insistence on including the term in recent legislation is a sign of things to come.

The Bill introduced by Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn creates the framework for a credit reporting system.

A credit bureau is prohibited, under the legislation, from including any sensitive personal information in a credit report.

Sensitive personal information is defined, in the Interpretation clause of the Bill, as personal information on a data subject’s racial or ethnic origin; political opinions; religious beliefs or other beliefs of a similar nature; membership of a political body; membership of a trade union; genetic data; biometric data; sexual orientation or sex life; physical or mental health or condition; or criminal record.

While supporting the Bill, Bishop Atherley questioned why it was necessary to include “sexual orientation or sex life”.
“For the life of me, I can’t figure out why that makes its way into this, I really can’t, except that it constitutes part of a pattern,” he said.
The Opposition Leader pointed out that similar references had been made in the Welcome Stamp legislation, the Anti- Discrimination legislation and the Charter of Barbados.

“And here it is again and I have to wonder if it constitutes part of a pattern that signals something for us,” he said.

“One wonders what is going to happen when we start to formulate a new Constitution in Barbados…. If you put it in the context of what we have been seeing in recent weeks and months, is there a pattern emerging with respect to the buildout of new legislation in Barbados to incorporate lifestyles and to incorporate legislatively held positions on issues which themselves may be in contrast and contradiction to other existing pieces of legislation?”

Bishop Atherley said he would have understood the inclusion of gender and was adamant that an explanation needed to be given to Barbadians for the use of the other terms.

Meantime, responding to Minister Straughn’s assurance during his presentation that personal information would remain confidential under the credit reporting system, Bishop Atherley said no such promise could be made in a society like Barbados.

“The truth of the matter is, there is hardly anything about you, about me, that half of Barbados does not know or will not hear.
Sometimes those said or written or documented are not necessarily true, but the point I’m making is that information gets around,” he said.

“Now we can do things to improve the situation, and hopefully this legislation will achieve the objective of improving the situation.
That notwithstanding, I think it is a bit extreme to suggest that nobody will know.”

The Leader of the Opposition said it was therefore important that privacy was absolutely critical.

“We need to be better as a society, as a national community at how we handle matters which fall under that kind of umbrella of privacy and then when there are breaches, how we treat to those breaches,” he said.

Bishop Atherley further suggested that the punishment for those who fail to comply with the Fair Credit Reporting legislation should be more severe.

All breaches related to privacy carry a fine of $50,000 and/or imprisonment for three years.

“To me, that is very small compared to some of the other penalties we’ve provided for in other pieces of legislation. These are serious breaches that we’re talking about here. We’re talking about people’s private information being shared in a world which has become rather small because of the access to technology.

“I believe that the penalty applied to breaches of privacy within the context of this legislation should be significant and severe,”
Bishop Atherley insisted.

A fine of $200,000 is liable to be paid by a business that does not apply to the Central Bank of Barbados for a licence to carry on the business of a credit bureau, within six months after the commencement of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, if it had already been in existence before.

Additionally, a person guilty of an offence under the Act for which no penalty is otherwise specifically provided is liable on summary conviction, to a fine of $100,000 or to imprisonment for five years or to both. (DP)