Mr. Barry Lowry:

I thank the Deputy for the question. Looking at where we have been heretofore, when people go for a test, if it was positive up until now, there has been an obligation to inform Government that someone tested positive so that we could take that forward to our contact tracing system. If it was negative, Government had no interest in knowing that someone went for a test. The process was designed to keep Government blind to the testing process for the purposes of GDPR. We wanted to honour that as much as we could when we developed the digital Covid certificate for testing. The testing companies still own the process and the compliance with GDPR. Government acts as a sub-processor. We have created an API. Once we know that the tester is valid, we take it through a short training process so that it understands how the technology works. Testers simply upload the data to the OGCIO and we send them back the certificate. They then contact the person who was tested and provide him or her with the certificate. We are completely blind as to who is being tested and who wants a certificate for a specific purpose.