Mr. Liam Herrick:

I will first address the question of the law being transparent and readable to the public. To be clear, it is not just a preference that the law should be accessible. There is a legal obligation on the State to ensure that laws which restrict individual privacy rights are accessible. We refer in our submission to the European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence in the cases of Sunday Times vUK (No 1), and S and Marper vUK.In both of those cases, respectively concerning defamation law and surveillance law, the Court outlined a principle that if a law speaks directly to the question of individual privacy rights, there is an obligation on states to make that law accessible. As such, there is a legal principle at stake.

On the specific question that Deputy Collins and the Chairman have raised about potential private sector involvement, there is a relevant international example in Sweden. The Swedish driver's licence database system involved provision of services by a private sector body. It became apparent that the database was being accessed by a private sector body in another jurisdiction, in that case in the United States. We have real-life situations of this happening. The Irish public services card system involves private sector service providers based in this jurisdiction. As we understand it, they are involved in the provision and manufacture of the card itself. There is certainly potential for private sector involvement either in the provision of State services or as part of the card system in various IT infrastructures.

In response to Senator Higgins's questions about international example, the Swedish case is pertinent to her query. We also have heard about an example from Scotland, where a bus pass system crosses the divide between the public and private sectors. A bus pass is relatively innocuous on its face. However, where information can be accessed about someone's travel habits, the case has been made that personal privacy is affected.

The UK and Australia are two examples of countries where schemes of this type were attempted, but there was public outcry against them. That is part of the tradition of common law jurisdictions, which have always had an opposition and antipathy towards compelling citizens to provide papers or information about themselves on the street. That is not what is at stake here at present, but it does underline where we are coming from as a point of principle. I understand Deputy Carey's point about the benefits of more convenient access to services, but this is something which we would say is beyond that. If an individual is accessing services in two or three Government Departments, and there is a form of identification which could simplify that, there might be a case for co-operation between the HSE and the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. We are now talking about a much wider range of Government services, and we do not see a case where identity cannot be proven using a passport, which is provided through a secure, publicly run system. If someone has reservations or is opposed to the public services card, and we have outlined the kind of reservations that a person might reasonably have, why can they not use a passport? That case has not been made to us. The onus is on the State to demonstrate that, and we do not think that it has done so.