Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 January 2018
454. Deputy Kathleen Funchion asked the Minister for Education and Skills the rationale behind Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI's, new third-party representation process; and the rationale for not now accepting email consent contrary to its email dated 5 December 2017 outlining the new process. [1906/18]
View answerIn order to respond to information requests made by third parties, including public representatives, on behalf of student grant applicants in a manner that is fully compliant with the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003 and as reflected the SUSI Data Protection Statement, SUSI must be satisfied that grant applicants and other parties to their grant applications have consented that their personal information may be released to third parties.
This consent may be given in different formats depending on whether the information to which the third party request relates is the information of either the grant applicant themselves or of another party to their application (such as a parent or spouse). In practice, and particularly where the third party request relates to the total household income relevant to a grant application, confirmation in the relevant form is required from the applicant and from each other party to the application.
The preferred form of consent for all parties to an application is that it should be given in writing through the submission of a signed third party authorisation form that is available in the forms section of the SUSI website (www.susi.ie/susi-forms).
However, in the case of requests relating only to the information of grant applicants themselves, the consent can alternatively be given either by e-mail sent by the applicant from their registered SUSI account (as this sufficiently verifies the consent) or it can be given verbally by the applicant over the telephone (where the applicant is present with the third party requester at the time the request is made).
For requests relating to the information of any other party to a grant application such as a parent or spouse, the required consent can only be given in writing through the submission of the signed third party authorisation form. Note that the consent of the applicant is also required to be included in the form in this case as the request concerns their application.
SUSI has notified this procedure to all public representatives from whom it currently receives requests for information on behalf of grant applicants and is notifying the procedure to all other requesters on a case by case basis as new requests are received. I have requested that SUSI issue any necessary clarifications of the procedure that may be required in this regard.
