The importance of data subject consent was raised in this House at an earlier stage by former Senators John Cregan and Farrell. Amendments Nos. 7 and 9 deal with this important matter. The EU directive which forms the backdrop of the Bill provides that the processing of both non-sensitive and sensitive personal data is permitted with the consent of the person concerned, that is, the data subject. The Bill originally provided that consent should be explicit in the case of both non-sensitive and sensitive data. However, the directive does not prescribe explicit consent when it comes to processing non-sensitive data. Concerns were expressed by a range of interests, including most recently the legal affairs group of the Information Society Commission, that the Bill went further than required by the directive and it was agreed to drop the requirement for explicit consent in relation to non-sensitive data.