Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Fair enough. In any event, he is noted as somebody who is particularly interested in some particular issues, issues A and C. The question is then whether processing of that material is lawful in the context of an election but unlawful at a later point? For instance, if the Senator says that he is hugely interested in having a referendum on issues X, Y and Z - we will leave out Y to be fair to the Senator - is the political party or candidate effectively required to stop processing that information thereafter? Are they allowed to come back to him, process his data and put him on lists of people who are interested in issues X and Z thereafter?

I have no doubt that the Data Protection Commissioner is a very reasonable officer, but will people be able to ring up political parties or Joe Soap, the Independent candidate, and say that canvassers had visited them two years ago, that they expressed some opinions, and that they want the party or candidate to never visit that issue again? Is that the kind of territory we are in? If we are to have this provision in respect of a candidate for office, if that is what we are going to do, is it personal to the candidate or are people or a movement supporting a candidate, other than a political party, also required not to process the data? Do these protections arise in that context?

I will use a topical example. Suppose there was a party which had strong pro-life views and that it canvassed strongly on that issue, or that there was an individual who was standing on a pro-life ticket. Suppose that individual amassed, through his or her canvassing, a picture of people's preferences in respect of that issue, one way or the other. Is that person obliged to cease processing outside of the electoral process? Does it become unlawful to process those opinions other than for an electoral purpose?

I am slightly worried that in putting all of this in such explicit detail we are ruling out a lot of things which could be perfectly legitimate as part of the democratic process. That is really what I would like to tease out here. I feel that we are putting in place fairly strict constraints on the processing of these kinds of materials. For instance, in my years standing for the Dáil - and I stood six times, winning three times and losing three times - I could have accumulated a fair amount of information from registers about what people thought, what they did not think and whether they were going to vote. I would like to have some indication as to whether I am entitled thereafter to use that material or whether I will be suddenly told that I will only be able to process that material for electoral purposes.