Data Protection

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 19 November 2015

Thursday, 19 November 2015

Ceisteanna (254)

Catherine Murphy

Ceist:

254. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he is aware of the Bara judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered last month; if he will indicate if the information in any of the databases assembled and processed by his Department, or by a company (details supplied) towards the administration of the Eircode postcode scheme was gathered using personal data previously collected and held by the State towards a different purpose; if persons whose personal data was gathered in such manner have been notified of the transfer of their data to the administration of the Eircode scheme; if not, his views that all such databases are now illegal in view of the Bara judgment; the measures he proposes to address this matter; the correspondence he has had with senior management at this company on this matter; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41106/15]

Freagraí scríofa

Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources

Capita Business Support Services Ireland Limited were awarded a 10 year contract in December 2013 to develop and implement the National Postcode System, on behalf of the State. The contract covers the design of the Eircode, encoding public sector databases, accessing the GeoDirectory database, the launch and implementation of Eircode and the on-going management of the system for the licence period. Capita do not hold any personal data on the Eircode database or Eircode Finder. It includes business names, which in some cases can refer to an individual, particularly for small businesses or sole traders. The Eircode database is based on information received from An Post GeoDirectory.

As part of the implementation process an address matching exercise was carried out on public sector databases. The purpose of this exercise was to populate key government databases with postcodes prior to launch. Approximately 80 million records were encoded, none of which contained personal data.

Earlier this year I introduced a short piece of legislation to clarify the position in respect of Eircodes and data protection issues. The Communications Regulation (Postal Services) Amendment Act 2015 provides protection for specified legitimate postcode activities to be carried out. The exercise of these activities is fundamental to the establishment and implementation of the postcode project. An example of a legitimate postcode activity would be the creation or management, by the postcode contractor, of a postcode database providing that the database only includes the fields containing the postcode, geo-coordinate, address or a variation of address, and even then only in certain limited circumstances.