Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

A data protection code of practice was worked out between the Data Protection Commissioner and the Garda in 2007. It appears there was intensive work done to get the code in place. For it to have legal force, rather than it just being guidance , it must be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas under section 13(3) of the Data Protection Act 1988 which states:

Any such code that is so approved of may be laid by the Minister before each House of the Oireachtas and, if each such House passes a resolution approving of it, then—(a) in so far as it relates to dealing with personal data by the categories of data controllers concerned—

(i) it shall have the force of law in accordance with its terms,

I have gone through the whole list of codes laid before the Houses, but I cannot find this one. Does the code have the force of law or is it just a guidance document? If the latter is the case, does the Minister intend to change this?

This issue comes under European law, too. In the past year the European Commission launched an inquiry into the independence of Hungary’s data protection ombudsman. The Irish Data Protection Commissioner recommended that the Garda destroy any material that was not subject to a disclosure order. Will the Minister agree that this is a breach of the data protection legislation and that it is wrong to destroy files obtained either legally or illegally? Is it correct that their destruction could potentially lead to the collapse of a case if it seeks to use them?

Was there a risk analysis carried out, as any other organisation would do, when the recording systems switched over from analogue to digital?

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