Ms Billie Sparks:

I thank the Chairman for giving me the opportunity to attend this important meeting this morning. I should make it clear at this point that the Labour Party supports the primary purpose of the Bill under consideration by the committee, which is to provide for the establishment of an independent electoral commission. We have some reservations about the division of responsibility that is proposed between the new commission and the Standards In Public Office Commission. However, given the time constraints this morning, I will not go into these now and will just focus on issues relating to the electoral register.

Data protection and privacy is something the Labour Party regards as being very important. We have a data protection officer and we engage staff both internally and externally to monitor our obligations in this area and believe we are fully compliant. We ensure our responsibilities relating to privacy and data protection are under regular review and we apply improvements as required. Where necessary, the Labour Party carries out a data protection impact assessment on any proposed changes to data processing within the party.

The Labour Party holds a database of members and supporters. This database includes information such as the names, addresses, contact details, trade union membership, date of birth, party membership fees and areas of interest. It also includes where the particular members or supporters have been involved in campaigns such as election or referendum campaigns. Supporters are added to our database if they sign up to our mailing list, get involved in a campaign or sign a petition or survey, but all of our data on members and supporters plus our website are hosted in Ireland. We do not hold an electoral register database in head office. As members will be aware, individual candidates for election or elected representatives are entitled to receive a copy of the electoral register under the Electoral Acts but this is not uploaded to a centralised database on our behalf. Candidates and elected representatives at local level may hold data relating to constituents relative to their functions in those roles and with regard to electoral activities, but this is not held in a centralised database within the Labour Party.

I thank members for their time and I am happy to take any questions.