Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 23 July 2019
2768. Deputy Michael McGrath asked the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection further to Parliamentary Question No. 912 of 11 July 2019, if the host mailing service is operational; if it has been impacted by data protection issues; the number of occasions this service has been used in recent years; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33489/19]
View answerMy Department has arrangements in place to assist with the tracing of pension schemes members. Where the administrator of a pension scheme or a life company is unable to trace a member using their own resources, they can use my Department’s host mailing service. This is a contact only service whereby my Department forwards letters which contain minimal information to the last known address of a pension scheme member.
The pension provider must have made an unsuccessful attempt to contact the scheme member and my Department will only forward letters to the last known address of the member, based on its records if this address differs from that which the pension provider has.
It is important to note that, in all such cases, the Department does not share personal data with any third party, and relies on Article 6(f) of the GDPR to perform the communication with the customer.
My Department dealt with 3,384 pension-related queries in 2018 and with 1,965 such queries to date in 2019.
I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
