Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent)
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This discussion is very timely. The difficulty we have is that the speed of technological change is so fast that we are finding it impossible to keep up. It is funny when we talk about people's data privacy. I am on to my kids the whole time about mobile phones. They are a tracking device. They have a person's biometrics, retinal scan and fingerprints. People are uploading all their personal data.

It will not be long before they will have a DNA profile on people using phones as a security lock. That is where technology is going. It is difficult to see how we will push back on all of this without almost Draconian legislation, particularly in the financial services centre where so many people are using digital platforms. It is so easy to embed monitoring as part of performance reviews so that as the time clicks, it monitors the number of customers approached.

I am interested also in where they were talking about conversations being recorded, let us say, in terms of banking performance. We have seen the move in Irish banks to digitisation. It is ridiculous now that you can barely get a teller in a bank anymore, and very difficult for older people. The banks have obviously done the metrics and they have decided the money is ultimately in getting fully digitised platforms. It will be difficult to stop or arrest the development of all of this. Their work is timely.

I also wonder about the monitoring of company resources. If I take on a job and I am given a phone and a laptop, the first question I should be asking myself is, "Is there software on this which is monitoring me?" What right does someone have to ask of an employer what monitoring systems there are in addition to the phone as provided from Apple and what has he or she put on the phone or in the laptop that is monitoring my time? Have employees a right to seek that information and can they get that information in a form that they can understand?