The ICCL has commented on reports that the Department of Social and Family Affairs and Department of Finance will be piloting a new photo ID Public Service Card. To be piloted initially amongst recipients of free travel passes, the card is proposed ultimately to replace cards used for accessing services in social welfare, revenue, health, education, agriculture and local government. The proposed card will include key information on individuals which public bodies intend to use for identity and authentication purposes and will be based on information contained in the Public Service Identity Database.
Commenting on this development, Tanya Ward, Acting Director of the ICCL said:
“We have very piecemeal privacy and data protection laws in Ireland and we want to know what safeguards are being put in place for the operation of this new Public Service Card system. Who will have access to this information and how will it be used?
Our Data Protection Commissioner only last week uncovered very serious weaknesses in data protection in the files of 300,000 people by the Department of Social and Family Affairs. Indeed, nothing illustrates the lack of adequate access control in public service records better than the level of unauthorised access of the Euromillions winner Delores McNamara’s personal information. One hundred and six staff members of the Department of Social and Family Affairs accessed the lottery winner’s files and only 34 of these had a legitimate reason to do so.
The Government departments responsible for this project must put serious safeguards in place to protect the personal information of every person on this database and to ensure that the information can only be used for legitimate purposes.”