Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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688. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development if she will clarify whether the transfer of data and/or records from her Department that is transferred to other departments, State bodies and local authorities is in aggregated form or on an individual basis; and the reason the data and/or records are provided. [3088/24]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, my Department has a wide range of functions, and data sharing with various public bodies is required for operational reasons. This data sharing may involve aggregated and/or individual-level information.

In the majority of cases where data is shared with other bodies the information is aggregated. With regard to individual-level information, my Department holds limited data of this nature, as data sets for our funding schemes are generally of a non-personal nature.

Where individual-level data is shared this is generally relate either to employee information, or where personal data of a limited nature is required for the administration and payment of grant funding under one of the funding schemes operated by my Department.

It is important to note that my Department shares data sets with other public bodies only where there is an explicit need for such sharing in order to carry out the performance of our functions and in strict accordance with the GDPR principles.

Where such data sharing is undertaken there are agreements in place setting out how personal data is used and the roles and responsibilities of each of the parties involved in the data sharing.