Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to speak briefly to amendment No. 64. Article 9 of the GDPR , from which the section is derived, states the processing of special categories of data in the context of employment and social welfare law is allowed as long as the "processing is necessary for the purposes of carrying out the obligations and exercising specific rights of the controller or of the data subject" in these areas. That is where we took the word "specific" instead of "any". We think it is more in line with Article 9.

On amendment No. 66 and the section, I am in favour of the deletion of the entire section. It was the subject of a huge amount of debate in the Seanad. Polls, focus groups and canvass tallies will all still be allowed if the section is deleted. All that has to happen is for consent to be gained to note somebody's political view, only if someone is planning to use it with the person's name and address or IP address in the course of one or other of these activities. It is not really a big ask. Notably, there was a letter yesterday in the newspapers from Digital Rights Ireland, Data Compliance Europe, Dr. T. J. McIntyre of the Faculty of Law in UCD, FP Logue Solicitors, Rossa McMahon and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties. The top people in this area are warning us. They have taken successful legal actions against the State. Because of their knowledge, they are warning us and arguing for the removal from the section of the blanket exemptions in the processing of personal data which reveals political opinions. That is why we are pushing to oppose the section. The State will pay heavily if we do not delete the section. Parties and candidates will still be able to run an analysis of election results in granular form. They will still be able to have super sophisticated analysis of polling data. The only things involved are personal data that can identify people in the context of their political opinions and the State would be well served by deleting the section in its entirety.