Information and Communications Technology

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 January 2018

Tuesday, 16 January 2018

Questions (1685)

Catherine Murphy

Question:

1685. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if her Department uses anti-profanity software on its email systems and online contact forms; if so, the level of human oversight that is applied to the monitoring of these softwares and their effectiveness; her views on whether persons' legitimate right to petition the Government may be blocked unintentionally by errors in the use of such softwares in determining that which qualifies as profanity being communicated in email and/or online contact forms; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [2085/18]

Written answers

Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection

My Department invests on an ongoing basis in traditional, defence-in-depth deployments of preventative controls like firewalls, email gateways, endpoint protection and advanced threat detection tools. My Department employs security technology that, together with a dedicated ICT security team and well defined processes, continually monitors the Department’s network and services. My Department uses a number of different security systems and technologies to protect the ICT systems and data. This includes filtering systems to detect and block malware and virus attack. None of these security systems blocks or hinders communications between my Department’s customers and officers of my Department. My Department does not specifically use anti-profanity software or intentionally carry out automated profanity checking on its online systems or online contact forms.