Dr. Fred Logue:

To answer the Senator's first question to me, it is of serious concern that there is no mention of how personal data are handled in the Bill. I alluded to this in my opening statement. As we have heard from the survivors, there is a very large amount of very sensitive personal data, some of which survivors already cannot access. There would have to be very specific provisions in the Bill on how personal data are handled in the archive.

To answer the second question, information on what happened or on the experience of people in the institutions is almost certainly personal data. The definition of personal data under GDPR is broad and means any information about an identified or identifiable individual and by nature of its content, use or effect is linked to those individuals. It is intended to facilitate fundamental rights. This means anything about a person's experience, particularly regarding being abused or bad experiences, in these institutions will almost certainly be personal data.

There was a question about the options open to survivors if they wish to access information. There is a fundamental right of access to personal data under EU law, under the Charter of Fundamental Rights. What will probably happen if this Bill becomes law is there will be confusion in the National Archives of Ireland, NAI. Generally, if there is confusion, the public body will err on the conservative side and will start to restrict access to survivors. That is my experience of what happens in these scenarios. There will then be a conflict between the individuals and the National Archives of Ireland over access. There may even be doubt as to whether the archive itself can access its own archive because of the idea of sealing, which is not very well defined. In the first instance, there will be a dispute over whether they can look at the archive to see whether it contains personal data belonging to a person. The options available if that dispute cannot be resolved with the NAI is a complaint to the Data Protection Commission, DPC, or litigation. The DPC will face the same problem as the NAI. In all likelihood, the NAI will tell the DPC that it is sorry but it cannot access that material and neither can the DPC, which may initiate more litigation at the initiative of either the DPC or the survivor. One certain thing is that it will delay access. With no disrespect to survivors, any delay for them will have a significant effect on them accessing their own information.