Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Each individual thing that happens has a test of what is the appropriate way. Things will happen between citizens and public bodies, where consent is an appropriate mechanism. Right now the Bill states clearly that the public body shall not collect or use such information for that purpose from a source other than the designated base registry. That source includes the individual, the data subject. Public bodies are being precluded from seeking information from a data subject on the basis of consent. The Minister of State said consent can be inferred. It cannot. In many of the functions consent is not inferred and is not even relevant in the case of some functions of public bodies but there are other functions of public bodies where consent is relevant and is required under the GDPR.

The Minister of State is creating a tension because of the once-only principle he has described. It is in the Tallinn Declaration but the once-only principle has no legal status compared to the general data protection regulation. It is nice as an aspiration and it is there as a goal but do not let us pretend that this is the overarching principle which trumps every single other part of our law and of European law. We are getting excessive emphasis on it. On that basis there could be a base registry where people give their personal data once, they have one point of contact ever and then thousands of data sharing agreements are put in place and that individual does not have engagement with any part of the State again because all of the public bodies share data. There is a danger there. That is excessive. I understand that the Minister of State wants efficiencies and there is great scope for that but it needs to be balanced with transparency, appropriate checks and balances and the individual data subject's rights in engagement with the State. That balancing is skewed in this Bill at the moment. I have not said not to use this in any case. I am saying to allow public bodies to recognise that there are points whereby checking in again would be good because right now they are not even allowed to check in again if that information is on a base registry. That is a concern because they cannot provide transparency to citizens in that way at the moment. We could end up with a very distant State and set of operation of public bodies which is contrary to effective functioning and a sense of engagement.