Ms Grace French:

I thank the Senator for her question. The point about companies harvesting our information is that we do not want them using our personal information to profit or make a gain from us. We just want our personal information to be protected. However, if we start putting in identification systems like Google Wallet, we are giving those companies our data and they will use it. What should happen is that if we give them these identification systems and this data, they should not be allowed to use that data in any way, shape or form. My passport or other identification will show I am female and 15 years old. The company will have to use that information to verify that I can use certain parts of their platform, but they should not use that information to recommend certain content to me. A fine should be imposed on companies that do that and they should be considered to be banned from the Irish tech scape.