Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 5:

In page 10, lines 32 and 33, to delete “means the disclosure of information, including personal data, by a public body to another public body” and substitute the following:“is the execution and operation of defined processes for the exchange of information between one or more entities for the purpose of supporting the delivery of statutory public sector services, or the execution of obligations under EU law”.

I started on this before and I will start again. Amendment No. 5 proposes to use the definition of data sharing proposed by Digital Rights Ireland and Castlebridge Associates in their joint submission on proposals for the Bill. One of the bigger problems with the Bill as initiated was that it failed to clarify whether the sharing to which it referred was a case-by-case exchange of data for a specific purpose or the creation of large-scale databases like the single customer view with no specific purpose.

The Minister introduced a Government amendment on Report Stage in the Seanad that I acknowledge went some way towards addressing the lack of specificity around what constitutes data sharing. Section 19, which states what a data-sharing agreement shall contain, now states that the agreement must specify whether the information being shared relates to individual data subjects or classes of data subjects, and whether the sharing will be on a once-off or an ongoing basis. That is progress, even though these specifications or details might also be included in the definition of data sharing in section 9. The changes or improvements to this part of the Bill were a result of another amendment submitted by Senator Higgins who, like ourselves, was relying on the Digital Rights Ireland and Castlebridge Associates definition of data sharing.

In the Seanad the Minister said that a simple definition of data sharing is necessary without really explaining why simplicity in the definition is so important to him. This amendment proposes to define data sharing as a process, not just as a set of actions. The Bill's current definition is not very different from the original definition in the proposals for the Bill, which was just a circular statement essentially saying that data sharing is the sharing of data. We are proposing a definition that suggests a system which might be subject to governance. The definition of data sharing at the moment is broad to the extent that it will inevitably lead to further functional creep, as we have seen with the public services card and its expansion.

This is linked with amendment No. 6, is that correct?