Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 3 December 2020
195. Deputy Alan Kelly asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if his Department has been the subject of an investigation by the Data Protection Commission from 2016 to date; the number of specific investigations underway or completed; the dates on which his Department was first notified of the investigation; the details of the investigation; the nature of the complaints; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40816/20]
View answerI wish to advise the Deputy that my Department had one audit by the Data Protection Commission in the period from 2016 to date. In 2016, an audit was carried out on PeoplePoint in the National Shared Services Office (NSSO), which at that time was a division of the Department. As the Deputy may be aware, the NSSO has since been established as a Scheduled Office under the aegis of my Department by the National Shared Services Office Act 2017. The specific information requested by the Deputy is set out in tabular form below.
|
Information sought by the Deputy |
Position |
|
Number of specific investigations underway or completed |
1 (in the NSSO) |
|
Dates on which the Department was first notified of the investigation |
21 March, 2016 (deferred from 2013) |
|
Details of the investigation |
In terms of the background to the decision to audit PeoplePoint, the (then) Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) Inspection team recalled that at the time of its inception (2013), the ODPC had flagged to Peoplepoint that an audit would need to be carried out in light of the volume of personal data to be processed via the shared service centre. At the time, PeoplePoint requested a deferral of the audit as the organisation had only recently been established and the ODPC acceded to this request. |
|
Nature of the complaints |
The investigation was a deferred audit which did not arise from a complaint (as laid out above). |
