Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 3 December 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Data Collection by Digital Assistants: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. William Malcolm:

The My Account tools are pretty comprehensive, and we have tried to make them really usable, so if a person uses an Android device he or she can simply swipe away a piece of data and that will be deleted. If a person wants to take the further step of ensuring he or she gets everything he or she is entitled to under the GDPR, we also have a privacy troubleshooter tool where he or she can fill out a subject access request form. When we get those requests in from users, we send them to Google Account. Most are quite satisfied and most say thank you, that they did not know that was there, that was what they were looking for, that they can now see the activity we are holding, that they can make choices around how they want to receive personalised advertising or not, in that they can opt out completely-----