Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make some brief points. Section 39 provides general permission for the processing of personal data for a range of what might be called research or historical purposes subject to suitable and specific measures being taken to safeguard the data. These measures are outlined in section 35. Section 51 takes this idea somewhat further. It provides that as long as the processing of data is necessary, proportionate and subject to suitable and specific measures, then the special categories of personal data, including data about ethnic origin, political opinions, health, sexual orientation and so on, can be processed for research, historical or archiving purposes. We are going to hear a great deal about these categories in the coming days. At the most basic level these sections mean that using a person's data without consent for research or scientific purposes is allowed.

We discussed this on Committee Stage. We know that section 58 restricts some of the rights that people have with regard to their own data under the general data protection regulation, GDPR, in the context of the relevant type of research, archiving or processing. For example, it includes the right of a person to have inaccurate data corrected, the right to object to processing, the right of access and so on. In general, that is fine but, as we said on Committee Stage, we have something of a concern that the concept of a scientific research purpose is not defined in the Bill. In other countries there is a tradition of requiring research to be completely independent of any corporate influence to be considered scientific.

I understand the points made by Deputy O'Callaghan during Committee Stage. He said that defining scientific research within the context of the Bill without providing similar definitions for archiving or statistical purposes might not be ideal. That is fair enough but we remain of the view that the potential for data exploitation for an undefined scientific research purpose could be problematic, especially in a country like Ireland which has proven itself to be utterly deferential to multinationals.

We were keen to make the points again. We are not going to make a major deal out of it. We are keen, however, to hear an assurance from the Minister that when regulations are being drawn up under the relevant sections to outline the ways in which data can be used for scientific purposes, some consideration is given to mandate that the relevant purposes come as close as possible to what most of us would recognise as truly scientific research. Such research should be independent and have in mind the public interest and so on. The purpose should not allow for market research, business intelligence and so on. Such endeavours might follow scientific methods and processes but clearly they serve the corporate rather than the public good. If there was some assurance in the regulations, we would not press it but we are keen to make the points again because we believe there is potential for exploitation.

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