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Passport Data

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 13 November 2019

Wednesday, 13 November 2019

Questions (87)

Catherine Murphy

Question:

87. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade further to Parliamentary Question No. 110 of 5 November 2019, the number of instances in the past 20 years to date data (details supplied) was accessed by An Garda Síochána, the Defence Forces, the Airport Police Service and other public authorities; the number of complaints lodged by Irish passport holders regarding the access of the data; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46852/19]

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Written answers

My Department is fully committed to keeping all personal data submitted by its customers, safe and secure during administrative processes.

It is not possible to provide the number of requests over the past twenty years as section 41 of the Data Protection Act 2018 only came into force in May 2018.

A case management system was instituted in January 2019 to provide more accessible statistics for these type of requests. 

There have been 2,198 requests for information under section 41 of the Data Protection Act 2018 since January 2019 to date. 

It is not possible to give further information on the details of these requests, as due to the requirement that suitable and specific measures are taken to safeguard the fundamental rights and freedoms of data subjects, my Department is not privy as to why the information is being sought by the public authority. They request information pursuant to Section 41 of the Data Protection Act 2018. It should be noted that in An Garda Siochána, the requests are authorised at Chief Superintendent level. 

Prior to January 2019, a manually operated system was in place from May 2018. My Department will be in contact with the Deputy directly on providing statistics from May 2018 until January 2019 as it will take time to manually collate this data. 

I can confirm that there have been no complaints lodged by Irish passport holders in view of Section 41 of the Data Protection Act 2018.

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