Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 111: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he will bring forward standardised guidelines on the protection of sensitive data in view of the fact that over 120 data storage devices have been lost or stolen from departmental staff since 2002 and in view of the loss of lap-tops containing highly sensitive personal information on individuals lost by private institutions also. [21067/08]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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My Department is not responsible for the development of general guidelines for the public service on this issue and a very small number only of data storage devices have been lost or stolen from my Department. The Department will however be participating on an inter-Departmental working group chaired by the Department of Finance which will develop guidelines in relation to protecting the confidentiality of personal data within Departments.

I am satisfied that my Department has sufficient perimeter and internal access controls in place to ensure reasonable protection of any personal information it holds relating to members of the public. Insofar as data devices are concerned, the Department's IT system is designed to allow staff who need access to official information off-site to access the Department's information via a secure portal. This means that they are working on the Department's IT network and no Departmental data rests on the device they are using to access the portal. The capability to download information on to devices such as USB keys is heavily restricted and there have been no reports of such data being lost or compromised.

The general position with respect to data protection law is set out in the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003. The Acts require that adequate security measures be taken by data controllers against unauthorised access to, destruction or loss of personal data. The Data Protection Commissioner has a number of enforcement instruments available to him under the Act to assist him in his functions and to ensure compliance.